


highness

by spells



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Historical Accuracy, Letters, M/M, Pining, Royalty, Slow Burn, Sort Of, courting, this fic looks threatening but its so soft i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26720785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spells/pseuds/spells
Summary: “I remember…” He grasps for words; he remembers, he still has, a sensation in his stomach like Tsukishima Kei is right, like he is necessary. Even as his face turns blurry, as if seen through a cloud of smoke, the feeling in his gut doesn’t go away. “I remember he blended with the ballroom, with soft colours and elaborate details.”“Mm. See? Start with that.” Kenma hums again, “A boy like anaffresco.”
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, minor Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma - Relationship
Comments: 32
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey! before you read, a few things i have to say: 1) i'm already done writing this, so the updates will not be very sparse. my plan is to post a new chapter every other day, at about 7pm brt (10pm utc), but to make sure you know when i post a new chapter you can just follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenhinabot); 2) this fic isn't set in any specific historical date but i tried to make sure it wouldn't seem too out of place for the mid modern age, with references mixed between the 1600s to the 1800s. it's historically accurate but also just me freestyling.
> 
> last, but NOT LEAST, maybe you skipped the warnings but this is a major character death fic. it will deal with mental illness and suicide, even if briefly/superficially. be warned.
> 
> now, enjoy! and [here's the playlist that goes along with this.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3iwDRfcSSE2pJA8eU6nnoz?si=WcjnrQfFR8qjSvxDQi0EZg)

Kuroo Tetsurou is 18 years old. His mother is turning 37.

The ballroom is full of life, tonight, with dancers and food, maids walking around with trays of hors d’oeuvres, trays of champagne flutes and tiny cakes. The ceilings are high enough for the air not to grow stuffy even with all the people and the candlelight, the chandeliers the most beautiful in all the kingdom.

Despite it being his mother’s birthday, Tetsurou has his own group, low nobles circling around him like flies, petite girls with big eyes and young men with shabby hair. He throws back glasses of champagne and this is easy, this is the life he loves to live, not a disappointment in all of his eighteen years; Kenma complains about it all the time, complains about all the self-seeking people, not an ounce of truth to them, complains about growing up sheltered, complains about not having to work for anything, complains. Tetsurou prefers to revel in it, take it all in, appreciate the luck that he’s got — there’s no place higher than this.

With a wave of his hand, the huddle around him scatters, going off to dance or eat or find someone else to suck up to. Tetsurou sits down at one of the various empty tables, cannot stop grinning, his body thrumming like a drum skin, champagne bubbles floating through his blood, and this is good. This is where he knows how to be, music and dresses, shifting around him like they’re made of nothing at all. He can feel poetry in the air, can feel it thick like salt in seaside air, making itself at home in him, on him.

He notices, then, the one person sitting at his table. Nearly imperceptible, hidden in plain sight, made of the same shade of porcelain and fresco as the rest of the room, pale pink and blue and yellow and green, bright white like a spring morning—

“Hello,” Tetsurou says, still smiling. He could feel his waistcoat loosening around his torso as the night went on, his sleeves unbuttoned and puffy. The boy turns to him, a sculpture in gold-rimmed glasses, and nods his head just slightly.

“Your Highness.”

Tetsurou hums. He’s pretty, tall and wide-shouldered, his face fresh and rosy. He looks young, but not that much younger than Tetsurou himself, looks like a faerie wrapped in rough cloth. “Who might you be?”

“Tsukishima Kei, prince of the kingdom of Karasuno, sir.”

“Oh, your Highness,” Tetsurou smiles wider, steals a glass of wine from a passing servant and winks at him. Tsukishima’s cheeks tint redder at the title, and he nods once again. “Well, if we’re both princes, no reason to call each other that, is there? Aren’t we both on the same level?”

“I’m not the crown prince, sir.”

“Well, still. You can call me Tetsurou, if you’d like.”

Tsukishima grits his teeth; it’s interesting. Tetsurou gets the feeling that he’s forcing himself to be polite, and Tetsurou’s heart flutters in his chest. He wants to unravel him, petal by petal. Wants to trace his soft lines, wants to test his boundaries. He’s so pretty, hair blonde like sand and curling around his face, his mouth pursed like a doll’s, his physique slim and long and pearl pale. Tetsurou’s fascinated — he might be in love, or it might be the champagne talking.

“I don’t think that would be very polite, sir.”

“Kuroo, at least, then. Tsukishima-san?”

Tsukishima doesn't look very amused, and instead it looks like it hurts him to say, "Of course, Kuroo-san."

Tetsurou grins and looks away, letting wine spill down his throat, already too intoxicated to be conscious or appreciative of drinks' flavours. He does understand that the point of making alcohol into sweet, light beverages is to mask the bitterness and make drunkenness easier, but ah. Being drunk is such a marvel, he doesn't mind a bumpy road getting here.

The party is beautiful, now that he stops to look at it. All the dresses and the jackets, tight around men and women's bodies, corsets holding waists of all genders in place, ruffles and patterns, hair of all colours and lengths fixed in waves and buns, high or straight, an absolutely remarkable scene. Tetsurou doesn't understand how Kenma doesn't find this fun, a rainbow of people, clothes bright and silky and heavy. Tetsurou would drown in this, if he could; Kenma's not even here, probably sleeping soundly in his quarters, hidden from the world. He can't pity Kenma, exactly, because he’s happy right as he is, but he sincerely thinks Kenma would enjoy his life so much more if he learned how to value the absolute treasures of nobility, parties and dresses, jewelry of gold and silver, ruby and sapphire, splendid—

Tetsurou looks back at Tsukishima, and wonders if he'd like to dance.

Tsukishima is watching the crowd, just like he had, and doesn't seem to notice Tetsurou eyeing him, languidly. Tetsurou wonders how poor his vision might be; while he knows very little about seeing glasses and their functionality, one of his governesses growing up had sight issues and explained it to him at one point. Perhaps, there is a chance that Tsukishima can't tell the difference of a Tetsurou looking to the side and a Tetsurou looking straight at him, especially from the corner of his eye. Well, that only gives him more of a chance to observe natural, candid Tsukishima, a wonder.

He seems a bit like a marble sculpture, his skin a silky finish, the colour of sugar when it starts to melt. He's wearing some sort of makeup, probably, because there are hints of blue or green under his eyes, just faint enough, and it makes his face look like watercolour. His hair is the colour of the sun, golden like the morning, and the curve of his nose and lips is smoother, softer, than any eroded landscape.

Tetsurou doesn't exactly consider himself a poet, as much as he is in love with reading other men's feathered words. Still, Tsukishima makes him want to live on paper, makes him want to bathe in ink. For this boy's beauty, he'd write all the letters in the land, he'd copy every novel to ever be published. He'd make up words just for him, invent an entire new language, because there don't seem to be words in this one sufficient for all that he is.

"Would you like to dance with me, Tsukishima?" Tetsurou asks, finally. Tsukishima turns, sharp like a knife, surprise lifting his eyebrows and he still — Tetsurou curses him, enamorate — looks prettier than heaven.

"Despite my mother's wishes, Kuroo-san, I am not a talented dancer, so I must pass. I apologise."

Tetsurou has to smile, he has to. He's actually never been rejected before, even those who sported two left feet always taking up on his offers, no one worthy of refusing a prince. No one but a prince himself, perhaps, because Tsukishima seems so horribly unbothered by his own actions. He's more than intriguing, he's enigmatic, puzzling. Tetsurou can't not smile.

"Can't you learn through practice?"

"I have been practicing for sixteen years, your Highness, and it has not gotten me anywhere."

Your Highness; Tetsurou notices, and so does Tsukishima. Tsukishima notices, as well, the way Tetsurou raises one eyebrow at that, and looks bitterly to the side. Tetsurou thinks, once again, that he just might be in love with this boy.

"I apologise if I'm speaking too soon, having only met you tonight, Tsukishima, but you don't quite strike me as the type to give up."

"I simply figure," Tsukishima pauses, "Kuroo-san, that some things are not worth their burden."

Tetsurou hums. "Is that so."

When Tsukishima looks into his eyes, then, it's a battle. Tsukishima's eyes are honey golden, a pleasure to look into, and Tetsurou doesn't take offence. He sits just like he had, lazy and strewn, and waits, unwavering. Tsukishima is the one to look away, after a while; Tetsurou can't say how long, because the world stops when he tries to decipher the magic of Tsukishima's gaze. There's no music, no people, and no party, just the curiosity of alcohol in his system and the trance that Tsukishima puts him in.

Tsukishima stands, coughing. "If you'll excuse me, your Highness."

"Where to?" Tetsurou watches him, finds he's taller than he expected him to be. Tetsurou wonders if Tsukishima's even taller than he is, and realises he wouldn't really mind that, at all.

"I'm not sure."

"Would you mind if I accompanied you, then?"

"I would rather not," Tsukishima says, cutting him off before Tetsurou even stands. Tetsurou can't stop smiling, Tsukishima's curtness so lovely, a change from his evening of kisses and compliments. It's wonderfully refreshing to not be treated like a divine being, and he might just understand Kenma, after all. "I might be on my way home, in fact. So, farewell, if I am to leave, your Highness. It has been a pleasure."

Tsukishima bows before he leaves, and Tetsurou doesn't say anything. Watches him go, rapid, and wonders where else will he find any man like this.

  
  


Being a prince growing up, you’re pushed to all sorts of hobbies, mastering a wide range of skills because you can never be sure of what life might throw at you. Poetry, for one, was supposed to be their entertainment, something they’d have recited to make time pass. Kenma never liked it, but Tetsurou turned it into a passion. He lit candles on his desk at eleven years old and got his nails and knuckles purple with ink, smudged his sheets with it when he went to sleep, hid pages and pages underneath his pillows when the maids came inside, first thing in the morning.

Tetsurou learned to love through other people’s feelings. He tries to write his own, make them up as he goes, looking out the window to fit the whole Earth on a sheet of paper. He draws with his sentences, illustrates, creates boys made of morning dew and girls with lines of ragged charcoal.

Tetsurou’s stumped when it comes to Kei.

Kenma has agreed to come outside for the first time since the New Year, holding an umbrella to shield himself from the sun but recognising that the thawing spring weather deserves to be appreciated on a lawn. They sit in the palace’s garden, Kenma with his eyes closed and his jacket unbuttoned, barefoot, and Tetsurou staring at and struggling with the same blank page for hours.

“Give up,” Kenma says, eventually, with a sigh.

“I can’t,” Tetsurou says, turning back to him. “You didn’t see him, Kenma. You’re not allowed to comment.”

“Well, weren’t you insanely drunk? What do you even remember?”

“I remember…” He grasps for words; he remembers, he still has, a sensation in his stomach like Tsukishima Kei is right, like he is necessary. Even as his face turns blurry, as if seen through a cloud of smoke, the feeling in his gut doesn’t go away. “I remember he blended with the ballroom, with soft colours and elaborate details.”

“Mm. See? Start with that.” Kenma hums again, “ _ A boy like an  _ affresco.”

Tetsurou smiles, and does. “You prove my point, Kenma, of how you could be a show-stopping poet if you were to simply try.”

“You act as if you do not know me.”

“I act as someone who wishes you would live your life to the maximum, cousin.”

“How can you know what the maximum of my life is?”

“Aren’t we all the same?” Tetsurou rests his quill on the paper, ink dripping on the grass and drying on the sun, and turns to Kenma again. “All of our lives the same potential, ready to be explored in singular ways?”

Kenma looks at him, in silence, for a few seconds. Then, he kicks him, and Tetsurou laughs. “Shut up, poet.”

“Poet! If only, Kenma, if only.”

“Aren’t you writing poetry? Would that not make you a poet?”

“To be a poet is so much more than to write poetry. You could write poetry, even if poor, and you know that would not make you a poet.”

“Kuro, will you please listen, I cannot write poetry. I cannot be a poet, no matter how hard I try. Tied-together verses do not make a poem, and you know that just as well as I do.”

Tetsurou stares down at the paper, thick and smudged, and he knows these words could never live up to the boy in gold-rim glasses and navy-blue garments. Tetsurou has to see him again, needs to listen to his words, polite but striking, perhaps the one person who might hate princeship just as much as Kenma.

“Once again you prove my point. All I do is tie together verses, make an attempt at recreating a beauty men much more skilled than me once got close to etching down, and so I am not and cannot be a poet.”

“If you only tie together verses, Kuro, poetry must not exist,” Kenma says, exasperated. “And that is all.”

Kenma doesn’t like to argue, which is a pity for how much Tetsurou enjoys teasing him. “And that is all.”

No words Tetsurou thinks of seem to be enough to make justice to the whirlwind in his heart and lungs. He holds paper in his hands until it creases and crumples, through morning and afternoon and evening. He tries alcohol to see if inebriation will evoke any of the memories back to him, but he only gets emotional and cries in Kenma’s lap at four in the morning, about how Tsukishima must be indecipherable and indescribable. Tetsurou wishes Tsukishima had said yes to a dance, so that he could have held him and watched him from up close, but he also knows that, had Tsukishima not turned him down, he would not be this wildly interested.

Kenma is extremely grouchy in mornings in general, but he is even less appreciative of having been woken up by Tetsurou. He pats his head without any smidge of delicacy, and Tetsurou keeps on crying. “If you’re so desperate to see him again, why don’t you visit him? It’s not like a visit to another kingdom is something that would taint your image.”

Tetsurou sits up like lightning, and that is it. Kenma has always been smarter than him, despite being way less enthusiastic about any subject tutors tried to coax him into, and this is when he shines his brightest.

“Kenma,” Tetsurou says, his face swollen with crying, and takes Kenma’s hands between his own. He is simply desolate. “You will come with me, right? You cannot expect me to do this on my own.”

Kenma looks at his face for perhaps an entire minute before sighing in contempt. “I guess I must see what ‘immeasurable grace’ it is that you have been talking about.”

  
  


The kingdom of Karasuno is not at all like Nekoma. Tetsurou sits in the coach for hours, looking out the window eagerly and just waiting for the Tsukishimas’ palace to appear, but the time doesn’t come. Kenma falls asleep next to him after the first thirty minutes or so, but Tetsurou is far too energetic to drift off.

The sights outside are still beautiful, endless fields of wheat, dark-green plantations that stretch on for miles, orchards like Tetsurou has never seen before. He sees workers with sun-kissed skin and cattle grazing slowly through the grass, more nature and life than he has ever seen in Nekoma. Nekoma’s not very large in size, definitely not as extensive as what Tetsurou has seen of Karasuno — he wonders if this kingdom goes on even further beyond the palace, and what it must be like to govern it —, and quite poor in vegetation. Their main resources are mineral, precious gems and abundant metals, which in turn have made their populace and their aristocracy very rich. Their army is as strong as they come, their kingdom made of settlements and towns, while Karasuno, despite being bright and green and sunny, seems melancholically empty.

Even when they do arrive, Tetsurou barely notices they have. The castle is nothing of what he would have expected, not a grand work in architecture like the Kuroos’ have for a home; it’s small, and simple, perhaps no more than ten chambers and even fewer rooms for dining, dancing, and lounging. It’s dark, also, made of stone and wood, candles and torches sparse and mural-sized windows trying to breathe any light into the building. Despite all of his years, Tetsurou believes he only came here once, as a child, for the bonds between Karasuno and Nekoma have never been the tightest; in the land and in the design, he can already see all of their differences like oil on water, like the lines in the sky when the day bleeds into night.

Tetsurou and Kenma are welcomed with trumpets and servants, and how can you not love this? Tetsurou smiles at the page boys taking his belongings inside, and winks at the maid who puts away his overcoat.

“Do you need me?” Kenma asks once they’re inside, still looking fazed from his slumber, and Tetsurou sighs, fondly.

“Not at all. Go continue your nap, I will see you for supper.”

“See you,” Kenma slurs, and walks up the stairs heavily, not at all outside of his sleeping state.

Tetsurou wanders briefly through the palace, empty and somber, all tall carved doorways and life-sized paintings — exquisite works, if Tetsurou is allowed to say so, even if his taste in visual arts isn’t the most refined —, passageways hidden behind tapestries and doors the weight of boulders. There’s not much to explore, really, and he wonders where exactly are all the people who live here, and how many people actually do; he knows Tsukishima must have his parents and at least one older brother, the crown prince, so it’s a true surprise that Tetsurou doesn’t find anyone but helpers.

He’s crossed the building before he notices he’s done it, finding himself in the library, the back wall made of thick, transparent crystal and the other three laden in books, divided into two levels with ladders and balconies on each side. He looks through them, a collection like he has never seen before, volumes he had only heard of from other writers, perhaps some of the few editions left of some titles, all carefully stocked and filling in beautifully carved oak shelves.

“Your Highness.”

Tetsurou turns and rests his arms on the railing, Tsukishima Kei looking like a breath of fresh air at the door. He’s not nearly as put together as he had been during Tetsurou’s mother’s ball, but he’s just as strikingly handsome, wearing a shirt made of rough, raw cotton and green pants that hug his thighs, if Tetsurou’s allowed, very nicely. He looks out of breath, face pink, and not at all happy to see Tetsurou here. It’s a delight. Tetsurou notices, after a moment, that he hasn’t got his eyeglasses on; his eyes look smaller, darker.

“Tsukishima,” Tetsurou grins, sly. “How lovely it is to see you.”

“This is my castle, I doubt you weren’t expecting my presence.”

“I haven’t known what to expect — where is your family? I have walked through this entire building and not seen a single person.”

“I am sorry to tell you my mother is away, Kuroo-san, visiting her sister’s family in the south. My father and my brother, however, are simply out hunting, and will most definitely join us in the evening.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

“Well, clearly,” Tsukishima scoffs, but recomposes himself. Tetsurou finds him absolutely lovely. All the words start flooding him, something about this boy being bitter and smooth like dark chocolate, something about him being solace on a spring evening. Tetsurou wants to write the words against his skin, wants to mark him with his passion. Tetsurou wants to love him until the end of the world. “I was doing garden work, your Highness, and so I chose not to go.”

“Garden work? Do you not have gardeners here?”

Tsukishima sighs and walks forward, sitting down at one of the study tables, empty as if no one has used it in a long time. Tetsurou moves towards the ladder, willing to take any opportunity to be closer to Tsukishima. “We do, but I also enjoy taking care of the plants. They’re better companions than most people.”

“Maybe you haven’t met the right people,” Tetsurou says, sitting down beside him, holding himself so high. Tsukishima runs a hand through his hair, looking a bit tired, disheveled, and it’s such a natural state. Tetsurou notices, now that his vision is sharp and clear, that Tsukishima has deep bags under his eyes, purpling close to his nose, sunken. He looks like he hasn’t slept in millenia. “I had never before met a prince who chose to do manual labour, however.”

“All labour is equally honourable. We simply exist on the prejudices of generations past, that put those who have to work for a living beneath those who have the time to be rich and think all day.”

“Is thinking not a way to work?”

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, Kuroo, but you do not have to do anything for a living.”

Tetsurou smiles — with Tsukishima, he smiles out of joy and interest and a startling feeling in his gut that simply keeps him going. Tetsurou is in love with their back-and-forth, their debate, and is thrilled to see Tsukishima’s manners come down in shambles when he just teases, irritates, pushes him enough. 

“Do nobles not live off diplomacy? No king keeps his throne without some amount of effort.”

“No king gets his throne through any amount of effort.” Tsukishima crosses his arms, and the way he looks at Tetsurou makes his skin burn. His words are sizzling hot, streaks of fire, shooting stars. Tetsurou wants to step into his flame, be engulfed and consumed in all that Tsukishima is and can be. If this is how he is at sixteen, if he spits words like daggers and has a body like gold, Tetsurou can only imagine who he will grow up to be.

“Royal families weren’t born royal, Tsukki,” Tetsurou grins, and leans in. He can smell grass on his skin, and he wants to eat him up. “Shouldn’t you know that?”

Even if not the biggest connoisseur of Karasuno, Tetsurou has had basic history lessons. He knows their traditions don’t go way back, he knows their politics and governmental system are very different from Nekoma, decentralised instead of absolute. The kingdom of Karasuno only came together a few generations back, maybe one or two hundred years ago, rising from countrymen just like any other.

Tsukishima leans in even closer, and Tetsurou can smell his breath. Tetsurou’s heart beats in the back of his throat and he smiles, smiles, smiles, loving the threat, loving the peril. Maybe Tsukishima will kiss him, maybe Tsukishima will fulfill dreams of all these weeks of tarnished desire.

“You know all rules have exceptions, Kuroo-san,” he says, pulling away faster than Tetsurou can tug him in, and walking out of the room like he had never been there in the first place.

Supper goes interestingly.

Tsukishima Kei’s father, the king, charismatic with his thick blonde beard, tells him tales of the hunt, his laugh big enough to warm up the room, and Kei’s brother, Akiteru, the crown prince, laughs small and makes additions that keep the conversation going. One can tell they’re made of the same thing, glittering gold and supple, gleaming of late-afternoon sunlight, perfectly fit for kingship. Tetsurou’s Tsukishima, however, cold and lonely and deadly, must resemble his mother in some way, because close to nothing of his character resembles the other men in his family.

Tetsurou enjoys the meal to a fantastic extent, because it’s fascinating to watch the expressiveness of Tsukishima’s face when he thinks no one’s looking, and even more entertaining to see the way he flushes red as a beet when he notices Tetsurou’s been looking, all along. More than that, the food is nothing short of exquisite, meat more tender than he’s ever eaten, vegetables fresher, spices more intense. It’s like he’s never had food before, and this is the first meal he actually eats, after nearly two decades of doing it wrong. He compliments the head cook, at the end, and the king brings her and her apprentice to the table so that Tetsurou can talk to them directly. It’s entirely refreshing, talking to them, seeing how the king embraces them as essential workers, as people, so different from Nekoma nobles who barely look servants in the face. There’s something different about all members of this family, and Tetsurou adores it.

It’s a sorrow to know they’re leaving tomorrow at dawn, already, here for nothing more than a short, friendly visit. If only the way here had been shorter, if only Karasuno had been smaller, Tetsurou would have been able to spend more than half an afternoon teasing Tsukishima, learning the shape of the glint in his eye. Tetsurou wants to come back, already, and he hasn’t even left.

Kenma wanders into his room when it’s late at night and Tetsurou had guessed he would have been asleep. Tetsurou talked until late hours with the king, mentioned the beauty of his library and his kingdom, and now he’s taking a stack of books back home with him, poets he had long since heard of and never gotten the chance to read. He sits in his bed in the candlelight, a book in his hand, the cover the same shade of emerald green as Tsukishima’s clothes had been, and he feels love in his chest, sweet like a dessert, rich and gentle.

Kenma lies on the bed, falls face-first, and Tetsurou closes his book. “Good evening, cousin.”

“The chef’s apprentice will be moving in with us in the change of season,” Kenma says, muffled by the layers of blankets on the bed. He rolls so he lies on his back, and drapes one arm over his eyes.

Tetsurou tries to remember much about the apprentice, but it doesn’t come to him easily; he remembers a small boy with bright orange hair, the same shade as autumn leaves. “What? Why?”

“I invited him. The king said it will be good for him, as well, to learn with cuisine from different places.”

“You invited him— You talked to him?”

“Yes.” Kenma slides so that he lies next to Tetsurou, and climbs underneath the covers. Tetsurou realises, now, that Kenma had disappeared after supper.

“Were you with him all this time?”

“Yes.”

“Good on you, Kenma, making friends.”

“I like him a lot,” Kenma says, turning so that his back is to Tetsurou. Tetsurou sets the book on the bedside table and watches the back of his head, dark hair spreading on the pillowcase. “He’s very polite.”

“You can properly introduce him to me when he comes to the palace. I will be delighted to meet him, when you speak of him so highly after merely a few hours.”

“Yeah,” Kenma says, whispers, and Tetsurou can tell he is falling asleep already. They’ve shared beds so many times since they were young, had so many slumber parties, that Tetsurou doesn’t even question this. “Okay.”

  
  


The poetry comes to him when he’s back home. He sits in the garden again, surrounded by blooming flowers in the warm spring air, and fills pages with scraps of lines, attempts at love in metric and rhyme. He’s suddenly fourteen, shy and insecure and building castles with letters and quills, keeping poetry books under his bed, falling asleep at his desk but remembering to blow the candles off after one very near disaster. He’s suddenly fifteen, kissing a girl for the first time even if he’s not supposed to, learning that love and passion tasted like jewels, learning that all those poets were right at the same time that they were lacking. He’s suddenly sixteen, stashes of love poems in his drawers, testing his own limits, writing meaningless words for girls and boys he doesn’t care for, copying and inventing because practice makes perfect and he doesn’t have to mean it for it to be good, he just has to want it. He’s suddenly seventeen, coaxing Kenma into reciting his pieces because Kenma has a pretty voice, talking his mother’s ear off about a poet he wants to bring to perform for them, going on hunts and trips and parties and seeing the world as words waiting to be written.

He’s eighteen and he’s in love with a boy he saw twice, a boy he saw late in the evening dressed in the night sky and early in the morning, the same colour as sunrise. He writes dozens of poems in a day, works-in-progress and half-page-drafts, not ready, never ready, because he’s flooding, he’s overflowing, with freshwater and pigment, with cotton and champagne, anything that reminds him of Tsukishima, anything he’ll take. He watches his palace’s gardeners and wonders how Tsukishima would feel about making a home here, much more garden land to take care of if compared to his castle, many more flowers and trees and empty spaces.

“Mother,” Tetsurou sighs, at breakfast, dipping his tea bag into his cup, “do you have plans for my marriage?”

They’re the only ones at the table currently, but it doesn’t feel lonely. It never does; Tetsurou truly feels like his mother’s son, feels happy in her company, a part of her more than anything, her blood running through his veins. She doesn’t seem surprised by Tetsurou’s question, but nothing ever seems to faze her.

“Your father would like you to marry one of the Fukurodani princesses, or perhaps one of the higher nobles in our Court. I, however, only wish you happiness and love. I know how much you’ve dreamed of them, with all of your writings.”

“I might have finally fallen, mom.”

She looks at him and smiles. “For whom?”

“The Karasuno prince,” Tetsurou says, taking a sip of his tea. It tastes vague, mint faint on the background, but the warm water is still soothing by itself. “The youngest.”

“And you want to court him?”

“Oh, mother. I want to marry him, now. I want to wed him and go down in history — I want to rule by his side, forever.”

Perhaps Tetsurou’s constant smiles, his resting grin, are hereditary. His mother smiles, still, but it shifts into something new, impossibly infinite feelings all in the same expression. “Is he interested in you, as well?”

“He’s a bit hard to read,” Tetsurou says, looking down at his cup. It’s pale against the white porcelain, just a memory of green, and it wafts steam up to his face. “I don’t think he dislikes me, even though he is… Harsh, maybe.”

“Do you think he’ll accept a proposal?”

Tetsurou considers the shade of Tsukishima’s cheeks when Tetsurou says the right thing, and the coolness of his face even when they heat up in an argument. He considers the press of Tsukishima’s breath against his face, in the Karasuno library, a moment just for them. He considers the shape of his eyes and the dip of his cupid’s bow, considers poems in his room where he submits, he succumbs, he serves Tsukishima because he’s a disgraced lover and his heart is entirely, wholly, his.

“I would like to think so.” He thinks, considers being crowned king with Tsukishima by his side, the prettiest man in the room in a tight-fitting crown and a plush red mantle. He considers their wedding, thinks of making it the biggest event in Nekoma history, thinks of Tsukishima picking out flowers and of making this boy his. He feels so much, tight and tied up in his chest, enough love to fill a lake with. Sufficient to reach the moon. “I would certainly hope so.”

“You should ask him,” his mother says, standing up from the table. She looks at him fondly, but he can already see that she’s shifted into queen, ready for the rest of her day. There’s a very vivid difference between his mother and the Nekoma queen, even if both are kind and benevolent and will always, always listen. The queen is sharper, the weight of responsibility and a country on her back, a kingdom, her dresses laden with the people’s smiles and the people’s sweat, because ruling them, for her, was and is a choice.

Tetsurou, as much as he looks up to his father, wants to be king like his mother is queen. He wants to earn respect and not demand it, and to be a figure of peace and hope and power.

His mother leaves the room, and he’s left wondering how Tsukishima would rule, how he already treats his father’s subjects, in a way already his own. The prince who gardens, the prince of earth-stained fingers and gold-rimmed glasses. Tetsurou wants to make him king, see what he’s like with power, see if he treats all people with a simmering aloofness like he does Tetsurou, polite and restrained, challenging, a dare from just beneath the surface.

Tetsurou’s tea grows cold.


	2. Chapter 2

He decides it’s the perfect opportunity to ask him. Kenma definitely wouldn’t complain about going back to Karasuno to bring the apprentice — Hinata Shouyou, Tetsurou learns, as he and Kenma swap letters for the months they spend apart.

“I did not expect a kitchen apprentice to know how to read and write,” Tetsurou points out, sitting back on his sofa with one of Hinata’s letters in his hand. The vocabulary is crude, and it’s littered with grammatical mistakes, but the communication comes through.

“He’s learning now,” Kenma says, sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table and already writing up his reply. “The first couple of letters were read and written by their scribe, but he’s now teaching Shouyou.”

“Are you going to teach him, when he comes here?”

“Maybe.”

Tetsurou looks at him, long hair hiding his front, and stands up from the couch. He takes a seat behind Kenma and delicately pulls at his fringe, brings it to the back of his head and starts braiding it. Kenma doesn’t even flinch.

“He’s coming here on the solstice?”

“Yes,” Kenma says. There’s a pause. “It’s his birthday, as well. I think I want to do something.”

“What do you think he’d like?”

“Maybe— Maybe we can ask the cooks to make a personal banquet with all of our specialties. Only Nekoma food, ingredients. For him.”

“I’m sure he will appreciate that,” Tetsurou says, and carefully places the braid against the back of Kenma’s neck. It undoes itself, unravels, but still. “Do you want to go pick him up?”

Kenma puts down his quill, but doesn’t turn. “How do you mean?”

Tetsurou stands up and gestures, walking around the table, even though Kenma isn’t looking. “Go to Karasuno, once again. I need to ask Tsukishima something— We can kill two birds with one stone, so to say.”

“Isn’t it too early to court him?”

It doesn’t surprise Tetsurou that Kenma knows without him having to say anything, just as well as it surely didn’t surprise Kenma to notice that Tetsurou already had words and promises inside of him, a want, a future, a plan. Tetsurou never doubts that Kenma knows him best, never doubts the extent of their familiarity. Family is a thing, friendship is another. With both, united, they’ve never had many secrets.

“It has been months.”

“You only met with him twice.”

“Won’t this make it a third time?”

“You cannot think three times are enough.”

Tetsurou scoffs and looks at him, and he’s gone back to writing. “You sound like a peasant. Didn’t your parents marry for less?”

“They didn’t marry for love. You want to.”

“You think I do not love him?”

“I think he does not love you.” Kenma still hasn’t looked up from his letter, and it unnerves him. He kneels and pulls the quill from his hand, ink splashing across the paper and bleeding through, pitch black.

Tetsurou bites his words, “Will you please look at me when we’re talking.”

That seems to do it for Kenma, and Tetsurou should not be surprised. He spoke the wrong words, pushed in the wrong ways, and a Kenma who already puts up with him more than enough decides that he has crossed the line. Kenma stands up and his face is unperturbed, but that is exactly what is disturbing about it. Despite being soft-spoken, being a man of few words, Kenma’s expressiveness lies beneath his skin, reactions to every single thing. When he looks at Tetsurou, stone-faced and somber, Tetsurou knows he’s in the wrong, knows he went too far. There’s no coming back, now, no going back in time.

“Not when you are being idiotic,” Kenma says, eyes of stone, the coldest wood, the darkest earth. “I will not look at you.”

Kenma leaves; on the twentieth, Tetsurou arrives in Karasuno alone. The night wraps around him, cold for the brink of summer, greying, falling. This is his one shot, his one moment, and he’s wanted to do this ever since he saw Tsukishima, a part of the ballroom and stark apart from anyone else.

Hinata’s sitting on the outer stairs in no more than sleep garments, and stands up when Tetsurou’s carriage pulls to a halt in front of the palace.

“Your Highness,” he bows and runs closer, looking half-asleep, like a child. He’s a bit child-like, small, but rougher than any infant would be, his hands thick and scarred, calloused. “Is Kenma with you?”

That’s something Tetsurou finds peculiar, ever since he first noticed it in their letters: there is no level of formality between the two of them. They’re not a baker and a prince, a peasant and a royal, they’re simply friends. They address each other by their first names, sometimes shorter — Tetsurou’s seen a few  _ Shous _ , and he hasn’t even read that many of Kenma’s letters —, like they’ve known each other forever. It makes him wonder if they are friends or if they are lovers. Makes him wonder what’s making Kenma bring him across dozens of miles, because there’s no way it’s just to bake.

“He stayed at home,” Tetsurou says, smiles, tired. “My apologies for the lateness, I truly did not mean to arrive so deep into the evening—”

“No, don’t worry!” Hinata smiles and guides him inside, carrying his bag for him. It’s nothing much, truly just sufficient for overnight, but it’s still a display of his strength, hidden in his tiny body. “The family’s asleep, but you will be able to talk to them in the morning, before we part. Oh, and by the way, your Highness…”

Tetsurou turns to him, and he notices the redness of Hinata’s face. It’s more than a sunburn or a tan, even though he’s sure Hinata’s skin has been through more sun than he’s ever seen. Everyone in this kingdom, maybe except for the royals, seems to know the sun like second-nature, like homecoming. It makes Tetsurou wonder how, despite gardening, despite living in this land, Tsukishima’s skin is still pale like milk, like feather.

“Thank you so much for coming to get me,” he says, fast, all of his words falling into one,  _ thankyousomuch _ . “I am so deeply sorry for inconveniencing you! If I knew I’d be a burden, I would have stayed, but the word about your coming only got here today and you were probably already on your way—”

“Don’t worry, chibi-chan,” Tetsurou laughs, ruffling his hair. Hinata, at first, widens his eyes, shocked at the closeness and the informality, but his face turns into a smile in no time. Tetsurou likes people like this, people of smiles and light souls, a bit like himself. Genuine, earnest. Not that he’s conceited, of course not, but he is self-aware. If the world was made of Kenmas and Keis, there would be no hope for mankind. “I needed to come, in any manner. It’ll be a pleasure to ride back with you.”

“You needed to come?”

Tetsurou realises Tsukishima’s most likely sleeping. His words well up in his chest, a book’s worth of poetry folded between his spare undershirts, a proposal and a declaration, a confession, desperate and breathless. He’s eighteen and he wants to rush into a stranger’s room, wants to kiss him despite his distance, and wants to push him high up the altar, up a throne.

“I have matters to tend to with Tsukishima. Kei.”

Hinata frowns. They walk in silence to the door of Tetsurou’s room, no more than two flights of stairs in a building still ridiculously small in his eyes, and Hinata only speaks when Tetsurou’s about to close the door on him.

“The prince hasn’t been feeling too well,” he says, hesitation and uncertainty. Like he’s hiding something, withholding information. Being a prince who lives among phonies, Tetsurou has gotten quite good at knowing when he’s not faced with the entire truth. “There’s a chance he might not come out for breakfast, tomorrow.”

“Well, do you think he would mind me visiting him? I truly need to talk to him, if you understand, Hinata-chan.”

Tetsurou’s pushing him against the wall, metaphorically. Metaphorically, he’s ripping the truth from him, testing the limits of his theory, of his lie. Taking small, small steps to see where the edge of the world is. Tetsurou’s feelings, his love, his promises, wilt inside his chest, rot, bubble and burst, turn to bitterness and aggressiveness and sly, slick, slither.

“I think it’s better to decide after breakfast,” Hinata says, already nearly jumping out the hallway, sprinting down the stairs. Tetsurou feels like he’s holding a dagger to his jaw, and wonders what his heartbeat sounds like. “Good night, your Highness.”

In his bad moments, Tetsurou’s vicious, wicked, and ruthless. He projects. It hurts, however, to feel the prospect of not seeing Tsukishima, of a failed marriage that never even happened, of plans and expectations turning to dust.

He never truly manages to fall asleep. Despite the niceness of the bed, softer and bigger than his at home despite the smaller room — all of what the Karasuno palace lacks for in space it makes up for with love, décor, trinkets and beauty scattered like stardust, like air —, he rolls and stirs and shifts, falls asleep for a handful of minutes and wakes up with pain, uncomfortable.

When he gives up, too worked-up and disappointed to fall asleep, he cannot tell for the life of him what time it must be. He’s unable to look at the night sky, woven with stars, and say that it’s eleven or it’s three, so he doesn’t keep looking out the window.

He walks out of his room and through the palace, finding himself in the library again. He doesn’t know what time it is, but the sky doesn’t seem oppressive when looked at from the glass wall, crystal, diamond, made of protection and exposure. Karasuno extends infinite, for more miles than he can count, forever longer than the distance between each of their castles. He sees past the limits of the royal field and then he sees hills and plains and valleys, outstretched, endless, houses the size of eyelashes, light and dark and moon and stars. It’s beautiful, here, the land unknown and the people unchanging.

“Will you please, please stop?” Tetsurou turns around, and Tsukishima stands in the library doorway wrapped in a cape, wrapped in a blanket, looking small and soft and vulnerable. Tetsurou thinks about how he wants to marry him, and see all of his soft spots.

“Stop?”

Tsukishima walks closer and sits on the ground next to him; he still looks so small, even tall and real and right next to him. He looks like he’s been sleeping for years, aging, maturing, and never being alive.

“Stealing my lonesome moments,” Tsukishima sighs, whispers. Tetsurou sits next to him and, when he slides a bit closer, trying to grab onto his warmth, Tsukishima actually doesn’t budge. “At your ball, and in your visit, and now in the middle of the night. You’re everywhere. You’re a pest.”

“I’m sorry,” Tetsurou says, quiet and earnest, and he means it. He can tell Tsukishima notices the honesty in his tone, too, because he sighs again, exasperated.

“Don’t— It’s okay.”

They sit in silence, and the world ends around them.

“Hinata said you weren’t feeling well?”

In reality, Tsukishima doesn’t look too fresh, too well. He sighs, again, and he looks a bit like a child, with those thick bags around his eyes and an emptiness behind them. “I’m not. I’ve been…” Tetsurou waits for him to speak. Tetsurou wants to take his hand. “Sleeping. All day. And now I can’t sleep anymore.”

Tetsurou wants to take his hand.

“I can keep you company.”

“Why aren’t you asleep?”

Tetsurou wants to take his hand in marriage, and make him the happiest man alive, the prettiest man in the room. Tetsurou wants to drape him in gold and velvet, emeralds and pearls, to bring out the colour of his skin, his eyes, his hair. Tetsurou wants to make him king and be his subject, wants to enact for him, act for him, spew lines and lines of senseless poetry that can barely add up to the prose of his contours, his lines, his edges. Tetsurou wants to allow him to choose when is day and when is night, what is wrong and what is right, how to live and how to fight. Tetsurou wants to look out the window and know it all belongs to him.

“The trip made me restless,” he lies, and wonders if Tsukishima’s prince senses are as refined as his own. “Trust me, I’ve been trying, in bed, for hours.”

“Ah,” Tsukishima says, smiles, subtly, “you get me.”

It’s his smile that brings Tetsurou off the edge. It’s his smile, like a moment of weakness, a moment of truth, that sets him on blue fire, a cold kind of burning. He takes Tsukishima’s hand, brings it close to his chest, and hopes he can feel the boundless, beatless, heart underneath his skin. Beating so fast it’s a vibration, a flicker, a hummingbird’s wings.

“Please marry me.”

Then, Tsukishima tears his hand away. Then, Tsukishima stands up and staggers backwards, horrified, until he crashes against the wall of books and volumes fall to the floor, banging mutely against the wood. “What? Are you insane?”

“Please, Tsukishima, let me make you king.” Tetsurou knows he is insane, knows he’s frantic. But he means it when he thinks he’ll do anything for this boy, a passion turning him weak and despaired, a yearning. He lacks sleep and lacks judgment, but crawls forward on his knees, unwilling to stand and make himself level with Tsukishima. “You won’t regret it, I promise. I swear.”

Tetsurou waits. Tsukishima’s face falls from horror into disgust, into offence. He recomposes himself, straightens his back, and looks down at Tetsurou like he’s barely looking at a man.

“Kuroo,” he starts, and the absence of respect in his tone nearly makes Tetsurou shudder. “I am not in your court, or under your ruling. I respect you, as a prince, and as a person. I thought that you would respect me as well, but I now see I could only have been mistaken. I will not marry you, even less now, because I do not want to be made into anything. I do not need your promises, empty as they may be, and I do not need your word.”

Tsukishima’s eyes are sharp as a blade, but empty. He’s angry, and serious, but Tetsurou notices, now, now that he’s looking unabashedly and without any masks, that there’s a sadness that he hadn’t seen before. Beneath the surface, hidden underneath the ice. Masked, concealed. The truth no one dared to speak.

“You have offended me greatly, Kuroo,” Tsukishima says, final. His blanket drops to the floor, but he’s unbothered. He steps out of it, and speaks as he walks out of the room, “Good night.”

  
  


In the poems Tetsurou grew up reading, men would fall in allegiance to their muses, miserable, devoted. In their poems, they’d be on their knees, they’d be all-willing, a want turned into a need and a heart filled with submission. Rich men, almighty, noble, royals, would be no more than subjects to a woman’s every whim, a woman’s flimsy desires. Powerful men would be rendered animalistic, raw, a puppet on a string, and they would eat themselves alive for their most loved one.

What did Tetsurou do wrong?

He meets Tsukishima’s mother in the morning, beautiful and kind, but still the same as her husband and firstborn. Tetsurou wonders, again, where Kei’s dryness, where his ice cold temperature, come from. He watches the empty seat across the breakfast table as he eats, watches the queen ask for a servant to go bring Tsukishima down once, twice, and finally give in and take a tray of food up to his room.

The ride back home is silent, even when he knows Hinata must be shaking in his seat with energy and excitement. Tetsurou feels bitter, and knows that he’ll lash out again if he doesn’t control himself, behave. He wants to apologise to Kenma, yell his sorries from miles away, because he can’t stand the helpless feeling of this moment, utterly lost in what to do, alone.

“It’s your birthday, is it not?”

Hinata looks at him, but Tetsurou’s not looking back. They’ve stopped for the horses to rest, halfway through the trip, the midday sun unforgiving on Tetsurou’s face. He lets it hit him; he deserves to be scorched through.

“Y-yes, your Highness.”

“Happy birthday, Hinata.” Tetsurou turns to him and gives him a tentative smile, for these trying times. Hinata, from the shade inside the carriage, smiles back with such certainty it turns Tetsurou’s heart lighter. Betters his day, a chip at a time.

“Thank you so much, your Highness! This means a lot, thank you so much—”

It’s easier to think with Hinata’s soothing, happy energy around, less shaking with energy and power and more enthusiastic, even if quiet. Tetsurou looks out the window in optimism when the fields of corn turn barren, rocky, a moss-green forest even at the brightest hour of day, plants that struggled their way onto stone. It’s astoundingly comforting to recognise these mountains and these cliffs, to know where he is, where they’re going. Evergreen trees encompass them, impossibly tall and strong and thin, and Tetsurou feels their wisdom coming through him.

Kenma waits for them at the palace doors.

“Shouyou,” he says, and the brightness in his eye is a stab to Tetsurou’s back, such glee from seeing Hinata when there’s nothing from seeing him. It’s a stab to Tetsurou’s back, because he runs and hugs Hinata, whispers something, birthday wishes, love confessions, in his ear, and Tetsurou didn’t know his cousin was in love. There’s no way this is amicable, not with the way Kenma smiles, not with the way he glows under the sun, wearing the golden garments he had tailored for his sixteenth birthday, not with the way he looks like he’d do anything Hinata asked.

It’s a stab to Tetsurou’s back for Kenma to be in such selfless love, because it means he knows how to be in love and Tetsurou is stranded. It means he’s been falling in love, truer than any poem Tetsurou’s ever scratched at, and he couldn’t have given a single helping hand.

The table is set for three in the kitchen, filled with the dishes Tetsurou’s endlessly familiarised with. It’s surprising to see that there’s a spot for him, considering his argument with Kenma, considering the love story unraveling in front of him. It must’ve been a formality, an excuse. He refuses to join them.

Hinata, after nearly crying when he sees the feast ready for him, asks to be excused simply to change into more appropriate clothing, fancier, and Kenma smiles when he says there are clothes waiting for him in Kenma’s room. A maid goes up with him and Tetsurou stays with Kenma in the kitchen, just to get his chance, just to apologise.

“I’m sorry.”

Kenma doesn’t look at him, but Tetsurou can tell from his face that he is not angry anymore. “It’s okay. How did it go?”

“It?” Tetsurou asks, even when he knows. He asks, to get a second, a shot, at finding what to say, and how to say it.

“The proposal.”

It’s not enough time; he stays silent, opens his mouth and closes it, no wording feeling proper on his tongue.

“He refused you,” Kenma says, looking at him, because Kenma can read him like a book. Objective and direct, no poetry.

“He refused me,” Tetsurou chuckles, sadly, and there’s that bitterness in his chest again, spoiling his organs. Now, it is not rage, but misery. “He was furious, he was— He was hurting.” Kenma stays silent, but hums, and Tetsurou laughs again, turning a little manic, confusion pouring out. With Kenma, he feels the opportunity to be genuine, to say it all, because Kenma might judge him, might contradict him, but they cannot abandon or betray each other, not anymore. Even if they could, neither of them would. “I don’t know what to do, Kenma— I tried him drunk, I tried him sober, I tried him desperate. What— No,  _ who _ else does he expect me to be?”

Kenma hums again, his eyes like cinnamon, like honey, but bitter and cruel. His eyes like spoiled spices, no mercy for him. Tetsurou can see the residues of love and light, and wants to figure out what his love means to him.

Kenma looks down, and puts his hands inside his pant pockets. “Did you try him true?”

“True?”

“Kuro, understand that I am not insulting you when I say this, but you haven’t been genuine since we were kids.” Kenma takes a deep breath, like he’s preparing for more, like he’s about to dive in. “I get it, it’s the way you cope, but if you want to wed him, you have to let him know you.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

Kenma starts speaking, but Tetsurou interrupts him when he hears running down the stairs, on its way to the kitchen. Tetsurou smiles, because Kenma turns to the door, like he’s waiting, like he longs, to see Hinata coming in, in the outfit Kenma made special, just for him.

“Tell me later, okay? I’ll leave you to it,” he nods, knowing Kenma isn’t paying attention the second Hinata comes through the door, tight-fitted in black and grey garments, embroidered with strings made of actual silver, adorned with bud-sized sapphires and lapis lazuli. It highlights the colour of his hair and skin; Kenma chose right. Tetsurou doesn’t stay to watch his reaction, but he imagines awe like fireworks in his eyes, love like a spring day and butterflies and the first cherry blossoms of the year.

He sits at his desk, the sun setting in shades of fire outside his window, and cannot scratch a single word into paper, not a poem or a letter or a note.

He’s supposed to try him true. Show Tsukishima who he is. The question that remains is whether he himself knows who that is. He sits at his desk, too afraid to look through his records, to look through attempts at journals and years of poetry, of prose, because if what he knows of himself isn’t who he is, then who is he, and how is he supposed to know? Kenma’s words ring inside his head, echo like a tower’s bell, and he’s too nervous to even think, even less to think of a truth he can’t reach.

Kenma comes into his room at night, without knocking, and sits at the edge of his bed. Tetsurou wasn’t asleep, only lying with infinite thoughts in his head, unable to even close his eyes, so he looks and waits for Kenma to say something, even when he knows he won’t. He waits until he finds the right thing to say.

Tetsurou settles with, “You didn’t even mention what the two of you were.”

Kenma doesn’t have to ask to know what he’s referring to. “You were a bit busy.”

“You could have helped me with your own experience. You could have said something.”

“You read our letters, you could have guessed.”

“Terrible argument.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“Way to deflect, cousin.”

“But have you?”

Tetsurou scoffs and sits up, all his thoughts streaming into words streaming into voice. “How am I supposed to know who I am, if I haven’t been that person since I was a kid? Do you even know who I am, or do you just guess, can you tell? Are you sure you do not have the wrong image of me, are you sure you do not think I am someone besides who I truly am, are you sure you’re the correct one in this situation? And what if he likes the real me even less, what if I’m putting everything at risk with this, what if I ruin it all?”

Kenma smiles, jeering, at Tetsurou’s frantic words. “If you think for even a second, you will know if you’re being true. Have you never tried it?”

Tetsurou grits his teeth, “Are you implying that I don’t think?”

At this, Kenma laughs, whole-heartedly, a sound that fills a room. Rarer than any gem, than any jewel. “Probably.”

Tetsurou thinks, before he responds. He notices that his instinct,  _ of course I think before I speak _ , isn’t true at all. He notices that it would be deflecting, escaping, running away. He finally sees it, the wall, the barrier, years of guarding himself from others’ ulterior motives and mean-spirited ideals. “You’re right,” he says, instead, after maybe a moment and maybe a minute. Kenma smiles at him, soft, all-knowing.

“I often am.”

Tetsurou laughs, now, a weight off his chest. As much as he and Kenma are always jabbing at one another, teasing and arguing, this is new, and this is different. This Kenma’s light-hearted, on the edge of optimism, jokes to make both of them laugh, words with confidence and need. Tetsurou wonders if Hinata’s behind this, if Hinata’s the one to bring him joy and well-spiritism and fun.

Kenma deserves it, he thinks. Love, and happiness, and peace. Someone to make him happy simply because one’s bliss brings the other’s. Kenma might deserve love more than him, despite young Tetsurou’s fascination with it. Kenma might be the one who will learn to love and care, and then teach him. Wouldn’t be the first time, honestly, that the younger, brighter Kenma outdoes even Tetsurou’s best. The thing is, actually, that Tetsurou doesn’t mind; he looks at him, the residual smile on his face, the flush despite the late night and the peace, and he knows he deserves it.

  
  


_ To your Highness, Tsukishima Kei, prince of Karasuno; _

_ I am aware my letter may come as a displeasure, even if not a surprise, and for that I apologise. I apologise, also, for my hurried and rash question, my demand, of you to look at me as a husband and a partner. There is not much use in excusing what I did but, in hopes that understanding me better will allow you to forgive me more easily, I will share with you my reasoning. _

_ Truth is, I was not thinking straight, and did not have my head on properly. I had been sleep deprived and nervous, weeks spent with the prospect of asking for your hand in marriage, and so I took upon the opportunity with rather lack of grace. Perhaps, if I had waited until the next morning, if I had waited any more at all, I would have been wiser in my choice of words or timing, but I did not, and now it is too late for my remorse. Know, however, that I am regretful, and, once again, I apologise. _

_ More than sleep deprivation, however, I must say that I was just influenced by who I thought I should be. You most likely do not know this, but I am in love with and passionate about poetry. Considering the size of your library, you might know what I mean when I tell you that poets love on their knees. Poets love self-sacrificingly, bigger than the world, a love too grand for them to swallow, a love too grand for them to keep. I wanted to love you, Tsukishima-san, like a poet. I wanted to love you with blurred lines and thundering footsteps. I wanted to love you bare-chested, and to lay out my heart for you to see. _

_ Now I understand I cannot love you yet. I might be asking for too much, so forgive my rush — forgive me, Tsukishima, in all of my ways —, but please allow me to love you. Or, to show you that maybe, you can love me as well. _

_ All I ask for is one chance. If you say no, I will leave you to yourself, and with this I give all of my word, even if it means nothing at all. _

_ I hope you’ve been having a marvellous day, Kei. You deserve one. _

_ His Highness, prince Kuroo Tetsurou of Nekoma. _

_ To your Highness, Kuroo Tetsurou, prince of Nekoma; _

_ I do not forgive you. _

_ As I said the other night, you have offended me, and your words to me now mean nothing. You do not know me, and I do not know you; you wrecked what could have been with your mistaken expectations, and now I don’t see how I could trust you. _

_ I will tell my father that you are interested in spending a week here, as a guest. I am sure he will be delighted. Do not see, of this situation, something that is not there. You are not coming here for love, but for forgiveness. Do not rush things, your Highness, for I will not forgive that. _

_ My day got worse when I heard of you. I know I have delighted you with this reply, so you are very welcome for the improvement on however your day had been going. _

_ His Highness, prince Tsukishima Kei of Karasuno. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a heads-up that i might change the update schedule so. follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenhinabot) to be kept up to date with new chapters!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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He’s lucky to be going; he can’t stand Kenma and Hinata anymore.

They’re not blatant, or out in the open, but he knows of their love and it’s enough to ruin any mood. Kenma having a lover, out of everyone; it’s what bugs him most. Kenma being in love before he gets the chance to, even when he deserves it more than him. Kenma finding solace in Hinata’s eyes, bringing him up to his room in the dead of the night, doing unspeakable things to his body, before Tetsurou gets the chance to.

They even ruin getting Tsukishima’s letter, so the ‘improvement’ on his day was barely significant at all. It was rushing to tell Kenma that, despite his pessimism, Tsukishima had replied and had said yes to a visit, and he found Kenma in a picnic with the damned apprentice, loaves of bread and experimental cakes laid out in front of them, all the riches in the land, ingredients more expensive than all of Hinata’s belongings — even if Kenma had been making sure to spoil him, buy him clothes and trinkets and books, love stories to read over as Hinata learned to read, at all.

He packs his bags with petty bitterness, but, now that he’s learned to know himself, or learned to at least try to, even feelings like this one hurt. Because he knows he’s hiding, hiding envy and jealousy and how badly he wishes that were him. Maybe not with Tsukishima necessarily, but someone, someone to love and cherish and to feel things for outside of poetry. Someone to feel love for, instead of passion. Feelings of routine enchantment.

“Will you send them my good wishes, your Highness?” Hinata smiles, confident but sweet, when Tetsurou comes to say his goodbyes to him and Kenma. “I know I’ve barely been gone, not even a month, but still. If they ask, can you let them know I’m doing great, here?”

“Of course,” Tetsurou says, smiling too, because as much as he might be a bit jealous of what they have and what he is to Kenma, he’s glad Hinata’s here, and that they have this for themselves.

Kenma doesn’t come to hug him, only watches him from afar. “Godspeed,” he says, just loud enough to hear, and Tetsurou wonders what he’s thinking. Tetsurou wonders if he’s wishing him luck, if he’s wishing him love, if he hopes Tetsurou falls on his face or rises above.

“Thank you.” Tetsurou turns around, leans against the doorframe when he says, “Goodbye to the both of you. I will see you in a week.”

He will see them in a week; he sits in the carriage for hours, the summer sun melting the air outside like blocks of dripping ice, and thinks of a week by Tsukishima’s side. He’ll need to do whatever it takes to apologise, reach for forgiveness, ask for a chance, maybe another, time endless in their hands, the infinite expanse of land on the horizon, the prospect of only looking up.

The sun is still up, high and bright, when he gets to Karasuno, having left before the true rays of dawn catched up to them. He gets settled in, bags and trunks more significant than the previous two times, now prepared for hot weather and activities and even a small gathering for local nobles that the king said he’ll be having in Tetsurou’s name. He stays in the same room, puts his things in the same place, and the same books await him in the nightstand, a collection of traditional poems and songs and a short retelling of Karasuno’s history and geography, filled with beautiful watercolours of the northern beaches and the southern glaciers.

Akiteru comes to see him. Tetsurou keeps thinking about what it’s going to be like to see Tsukishima again, what he’ll say to his face, anxiety and expectations building vapor pressure against the walls of his lungs, but Akiteru’s the one who comes to see him.

“Your Highness, Kuroo!” Akiteru smiles, crown-prince lightheartedness, and, while the younger Tsukishima would perhaps be better off away from any crown or title, Akiteru is simply fit to be king. “Welcome! I am so glad that you will be staying with us. Me and father have been planning to make sure we leave a good Karasuno impression on you.”

Tetsurou smiles; he doesn’t think it’s possible to be upset with this man around, radiating warmth and being the ideal host. “I already think of Karasuno very highly, Tsukishima, I do not think this place can disappoint.”

“Well, I hope we don’t — my father and I have been planning to take you on a short trip today, into town and to nearest farms and villages. What do you say?”

“Of course,” Tetsurou grins. “I would love to.”

“Excellent! Finish settling in, change, perhaps, if you want to, and we leave in a quarter of an hour.” Akiteru pauses, and Tetsurou’s about to think he’s leaving, when he turns, just his head, and smiles weakly, impure. “Also, Kuroo, I don’t know how you and my brother treat each other—”

Akiteru doesn’t stop speaking, but in the fraction of second in which he’s midsentence, Tetsurou’s heart stops. Tetsurou’s mind races, what does he mean, how they treat each other? What does he know, how has Tsukishima talked of him? Tetsurou’s heart stops, and then speeds, his blood sticky and thick like amber before it’s solid, like amber under the limelight. His skin’s taken over by the moss that he knows, turns into the rocks of his home, and he wishes he’d rot in place.

Tsukishima won’t leave his mind.

Akiteru didn’t pause. “—, but you can call me by my given name. For us, our countries, and our future crowns, to be friends, yes?”

Tetsurou looks down, and Akiteru’s hand is extended, like they’re meeting for the first time, like they’re making a pact, sealing a deal. Tetsurou takes his hand, looks back up at his face. “Tetsurou,” he says, an introduction. Akiteru grins, satisfied.

“Akiteru. I’ll see you down in fifteen.”

Karasuno’s a rural kingdom, mostly, graced with lovely weather all throughout with crops varying per region. The king and Akiteru keep telling him tales and numbers, entertaining him with history and economy and, as much as he isn’t actually that big on politics, Tetsurou likes it. He finds it interesting, seeing the people of the country and knowing their story, talking to them, seeing how they bow to the king in respect and keep on with their lives. It’s a respect, admiration with familiarity, that he hopes he could maybe one day have when the crown is his.

“I am not as much of a king as your father, Tetsurou, as I’m sure you might know, due to Karasuno’s counties and lords. So, instead, I try to keep myself close to the people, take care of them, yes?” Tetsurou has read, in his watercoloured bedside table book, that the reason why the government in Karasuno stays strong despite its size and few cities is because it’s barely centralised at all. The king is the most powerful, but the country is split into counties, nearly feudal, kept in tow by the crown but able to control their own fieldworkers. “I make sure they all have what to eat, where to sleep, time for prayer and for leisure— I’m not so different from them, so I try to make sure they can live full lives. I try not to forget my heritage, and teach my boys,” he puts a hand on Akiteru’s shoulder, “not to forget it, either.”

“We are all the same,” Akiteru says, with a smile and a shrug, “so we have to treat people well in hopes of being treated well. If we respect them, they’ll respect us.”

“Even with the hierarchy?” As much as Tetsurou knows all of this, it’s still a wonder. His father is a good king, a kind king, but he still isn’t like them. Nekoma is too urban, too prone to thievery and revolts, and so their army backs the crown, protects the government, protects the people and their wellbeing. No member of the royal family could stroll through the streets of any city in Nekoma without at least one escort guard and some amount of fear.

“Of course, even with the hierarchy. I am their king, but my power is simply something they allowed me to have, something they invested in me. If they are weak, I am weak, and if they are afraid, I am to be afraid. Misery and hunger create fear, and fear creates fury, which creates outrage, which will take me and my family away from life as we know it, perhaps even take our lives at all. We’ve seen it happen, we’re not foolish. Don’t let the power get to your head, kid.”

Tetsurou nods; Tsukishima, king, is incredible. “Absolutely, your Majesty.”

Tetsurou spends hours listening to him, stories of his childhood, of his formative years, being a prince and learning to rule, going through so much of the same things Tetsurou has gone through. He’s a role model, and Tetsurou sees more of himself in him than in his dad, more of charisma, more of charm.

He only sees Tsukishima, Kei, at supper, still immersed in a continuous conversation with the king. He keeps talking, laughing, asking questions and answering some more, loving to be here, loving this. His first moment alone with Tsukishima only comes after supper, when Tsukishima leaves on his way to his room, and Tetsurou can’t not follow him. He’s here for forgiveness, isn’t he?

“Your father’s quite something,” he says, steps behind Tsukishima, beneath him in the stairs, and the prince stops when he speaks.

Tsukishima turns. Like it was not enough for him to be taller, now he’s higher, elevated, six steps above Tetsurou, looking down at him without a drop of civility for the first time, and Tetsurou can’t help thinking  _ finally.  _ A wall down.

“The two of you seemed quite immersed in conversation, as we dined.”

“We’d been talking since the early afternoon, he has so much to share, to teach—” Tetsurou, enthusiastic, goes up a step, and Tsukishima stumbles back. The staircase’s poorly lit, torches on stone walls, and he can’t see the look on Tsukishima’s face quite right, but he’s sure he’s not smiling. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Tsukishima trails off, and Tetsurou wonders if he’s flushed, his words half-spoken, intimate. “I am glad the two of you are getting along well. As I expected, in my letter, he truly is delighted to have you here.”

“No, Tsukishima, I’m sorry.” Tetsurou goes up, again, and this time Tsukishima doesn’t recoil, doesn’t take a step back. Tetsurou wishes he could see his eyes; Tetsurou wishes he could read him. “About last time. I know I said sorry in my letter, but now I’m looking into your eyes, and—”

He goes up until they’re as close to level as can be, a single step between them, a comfortable distance. From here, he can see him better, the lines of his face, even if in greyscale. He can see his eyes, light, perhaps the same shade as Kenma’s, maybe lighter. Golden.

He loses all breath, his voice waning, slipping through his fingers like sand, like grains of rice.

“I’m sorry.”

Tsukishima’s testing him; from behind his glasses, the rim the same shade as his eyes, reflecting whatever little light there is, he searches through Tetsurou’s face, tries to find the truth in it. And Tetsurou’s trying, he’s trying so hard to be true. He thinks he’s himself, and not a façade. He believes it.

“You’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

Tsukishima’s testing him; his face goes solid, indifferent, the same type of dark, cold stone as the walls, and he turns around.

“We’ll see.”

  
  


Tetsurou doesn’t think there’s a getting used to how lush the meals are, here. He wakes up late, but the breakfast table he sits at is still full, all types of fruit and pastries, hard-boiled eggs and olive bread, anything he could ever imagine and even things he’s never seen before. He sits at the table for perhaps an hour, trying a bit of everything, eating until he cannot stand to see food anymore, and gives his compliments — and Hinata’s regards — to the head cook once he’s finished.

Afterwards, he takes a stroll, the day too nice outside to be spent inside the library as he had been planning. He walks down the main road out of the palace until his feet are tired, walks back, wanders through the hedge maze until he finds his way out, looks at flowers of all colours and trees with leaves of all greens, with blossoms of all shades. He finds Tsukishima hidden away, tucked between plants, in a hat and simple cotton clothes, ready to be dirty.

He watches him, for a moment, before he goes out to see him. He mixes in with the plants, made of lilies and sunlight, starburst. Tetsurou knows, now, that he’s not in love, but he still wants to give Tsukishima whatever he’ll take. Still wants to write him poems, maybe, someday.

“Good morning, your Highness.” He approaches Tsukishima with caution, speaks from afar, knowing that startling him will only do more harm. Tsukishima doesn’t turn, at first, and only looks at him once he’s done with whatever it is that he’s doing.

Tsukishima squints under the sun; he’s not wearing his glasses. Once again, Tetsurou wonders how bad his vision is, and wonders when he needs his glasses and when he does not. “Kuroo. Good morning.”

“Did you sleep well?” Kuroo sits by him, in the shade, and makes a very big effort not to worry about the future grass stains on his pants.

“I’ve been up for a while. Did you? My mother refused to wake our special guest even as he slept in for hours.”

“I slept wonderfully, thank you for asking, Tsukki. There’s something otherworldly about your mattresses, I need to get one for myself at home.”

“It’s the mix of cotton and swan feather,” Tsukishima says, turning back to his work and digging into the flowerbeds, “that has to be measured to the exact amount.”

“Swan feather. How peculiar.”

“It’s a tradition.”

“It’s clever.”

“Thank you.”

Tetsurou looks at him, still, as he looks away. Of course, Tsukishima is aware he’s looking, but Tetsurou feels free to do it, to an extent, to watch him without looking in his eye, invasive eye contact. Somehow, Tsukishima’s face looks warm and cold, rosy in the slightest but smooth and fresh like water. It’s like a river, perhaps, ever-changing, flowing, plains shifting with a twitch of his lips, the ghost of a grimace, sweat around his jaw, hair curling, long and wild, around his face.

“Will you take me somewhere?”

Tsukishima snaps, turns to him, disgusted. Tetsurou doesn’t think he means his expression; he might be pushing it, not yet forgiven, but he likes to push. He likes to see where Tsukishima can go, if he presses and presses and presses…

“Take you?”

“Yes. Do you have a place where you like to be, or a place you would like to show me? Your brother and the king took me on a bit of a tour, yesterday, that is true, but I haven’t gotten the chance to see the kingdom in your eyes. I haven’t gotten that much of a chance to see the kingdom at all, actually, and maybe I was hoping you could show me.”

“You couldn’t have asked anyone else?”

“I wanted to ask you.” Tetsurou waits, and furrows his brow. “You don’t have to, if you do not want to— I get that we are not in the best terms yet, I am not yet forgiven, but—”

Tsukishima stands, and the action is an interruption. “If you were going to ask this, couldn’t you have woken up earlier?” He takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair, crumb-sized leaves falling out and the curls sticking up with sweat. “Now I will have to bathe again. Already. I will see you soon; be ready.”

He is ready; he is speechless, watching quietly as Tsukishima walks back towards the palace. Finally, he has enough presence of mind to yell, in the least proper way possible, “I’ll wait for you in the library!”

Tsukishima stops walking and turns, hidden by the shadow of the palace, small and far away. Tetsurou can’t hear what he says, but he imagines possibilities until he feels faint with them. Or maybe with the sun.

He changes into a bit of a fancier outfit, neutral earthy tones all throughout, darker against his skin and softer, rosier, for the jacket. He sits in the library, studies maps of Karasuno, and wonders just where Tsukishima might take him. Tsukishima takes his time, too, even if Tetsurou is not at all in any rush. Despite trying to force himself not to, Tetsurou makes Tsukishima into poetry, builds him up like a concept, abstract, intangible. Tetsurou makes him into a painting, worn-out shades of pale, makes him into a garden, sunburnt flowers and grass evergreen. Tetsurou keeps thinking of the way Tsukishima messes with his heart, makes it speed and stop, and he wants to fall in love just so this, as well as him, can be true.

Tsukishima doesn’t come into the room. He opens the doors and stands there until Tetsurou turns, dressed in plush, royal blue, looking like the most beautiful of beaches, perhaps the twilight sky.

Tetsurou nearly tells him he’s breathtaking, a vision in cobalt. He holds back. “Shall we?”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?”

“You didn’t say it,” Tetsurou shrugs, dropping the book onto the table and walking towards him, past him. “Carriage waiting, or will we be taking a walk?”

Tsukishima’s steps are smaller than his, but faster, so they walk at about the same pace, slow and rapid all the same. “Carriage. There’s not much in walking distance that you haven’t already seen, not much in walking distance that’s beyond royal grounds.”

“You do have a pretty substantial lot for such a small palace.”

“There aren’t sufficient funds, or even needs, for a castle as big as yours. We own the land that we cherish, but we build the space that we need.”

“I assure you we have used every single room in my home.”

“You had it and then you made use of it, not the other way around. If we aren’t lacking, why should we have more?”

They walk quickly down the stairs, and Tetsurou can already see the carriage outside, the golden accents glimmering under the sun. He turns to Tsukishima, “What do you do in the occasion of parties?”

Tsukishima really is a sight, now that he sees him in the sunlight, bright and shining. Tetsurou thinks back to the night before, and he notices the shade of Tsukishima’s eyes, truly golden just like his eyeglasses, like the rings around his fingers, a countryman prince’s jewelry.

“We do not throw that many parties. Also, the local nobles either live relatively nearby or do not mind staying in proper town accommodation. Didn’t my father explain to you how Karasuno works? Lords mostly stay in their counties. If they come, it is not for festive reasons, and instead mostly politics.”

“You could still not host a council here anywhere.”

“No political decisions are made inside the palace,” Tsukishima sighs, as if it’s a given, and climbs inside the carriage. “Governamental buildings are in the city.”

“I know, Tsukki, I went there.”

Tsukishima pauses, frowns. The carriage starts moving forward, and Tetsurou wonders if Tsukishima told the coachman where they’re headed.

“What is with ‘Tsukki’?” Tsukishima asks, after a while.

Tetsurou had been looking out the window, absorbed by the view even if he’s seen it time and time again. It should be boring, should be plain plains that stretched on, lifeless, but it is so interesting to him. Every time he looks at the plantations, they look like they could shift with a moment, and without any notice. They look so alive, for something in standstill. They look like a patched painting of details, something you can see if you just stop and look, if you just pay attention long enough.

He’d been absorbed by the kingdom. He turns back to Tsukishima, and all of his details, beauty up in your face, leave him dazed for a minute. “Hm?”

“You, calling me Tsukki. Where is that coming from?”

“It’s a nickname, no? Would you rather I called you Kei?”

“No,” Tsukishima grimaces, like he’s appalled that Tetsurou would even suggest that. Tetsurou grins. “Couldn’t you keep calling me Tsukishima?”

“In your castle, with your family, it is a bit hard, don’t you think?”

“But we are alone, now. I am the only Tsukishima here.”

Tetsurou thinks, for a second, if he should say it at all. If he should push it. They’re doing so well, Tsukishima done with his niceties, contractions informal, and maybe he shouldn’t push it.

Maybe, maybe there is room to push.

“Is it not a way to be intimate?”

They look in each other’s eyes, for a second, the pressure of eye contact, see-through, both of them with genuinity pushing to come forward.

Then, Tsukishima goes pink. It’s a sight. It comes up from his jaw, spreads up through his cheeks and nose, and he turns his face to hide. It comes down to his neck, Tetsurou can see, and his ears.

It makes Tetsurou wonder if he’s got a chance, after all.

“Do you not measure your words, Kuroo?”

“Did I overstep, Tsukishima? I apologise.”

Tsukishima swallows, and it’s audible. “Just watch your words.”

“Of course, your Highness.”

“Don’t even start.”

Tetsurou stays silent for the rest of the trip, but he smiles out the window. He wonders if Tsukishima’s smiling, behind his blush. He wonders how warm his face is.

They stop in the middle of the road and Tsukishima gets off without a word, simply opens the door on his side and slides off, gracefully.

“Are we stopping for the horses’ rest?” Tetsurou asks, getting out of the carriage and following behind him. Tsukishima wanders down the road a little, steps into the grassy field. There’s a cow a few yards away, and Tetsurou doesn’t know what in the world Tsukishima could possibly want to show him.

Tsukishima doesn’t say anything, simply walks deeper down the field, his feet drowning in grass, thick and fluffy, going up to their shins. Tetsurou sees no choice but to go after him, because soon he’ll be out of hearing distance, anyway. He looks back at the carriage, and the coachman doesn’t seem distressed, worried or surprised; he simply sits there and fans himself with his hat.

“Tsukki, please, where are you going?” Tsukishima doesn’t say a thing. There are sparse woods close to them, now, the two of them walking straight into the trees, and Tetsurou didn’t exactly come prepared for a hike. “Answer me, please.”

Tsukishima stops walking; Tetsurou finds it a bit dramatic, how he says things like they’re always a statement, always his final words. Like he might run out of breath at any given moment, and he needs to make himself heard, whenever he does choose to speak up. When they’re talking, it’s so smooth, so natural, to jump from one sentence into the other, but every single time Tetsurou has tried to talk to him in the past day, it made Tsukishima stop, freeze, like talking to Tetsurou was too much effort to multitask, like speaking to him demanded too much of his attention.

“You asked me to take you somewhere. I am. You asked me to show you something. I will. Can’t you be a little more patient?”

“I’m sorry for being cautious,” Tetsurou says, picking up his pace to catch up to him.

“Not cautious. Just curious.”

“Is curiosity a problem?”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“You could have been leading me into a trap. Could have been taking me into the woods to kill me.” Tetsurou’s shoes were not made for this; made, perhaps, for dancing in ballrooms or taking walks throughout gardens. Breaking sticks underneath his feet and crushing leaves, decomposing and mushy, don’t seem like the proper use for shined shoes.

“Because that would go wonderfully for my royal reputation.”

“You speak as if kings and queens couldn’t cover for any death.”

“You are far more popular than I am, Kuroo-san,” Tsukishima says, and dodges a tree branch. He clearly knows where he’s going, so Tetsurou tries to step where he’s stepping, because if familiarised Tsukishima can walk out of this without his clothes torn and stained, then so will he. “My people, my father’s people, might not even know who I am. Your death under our care would reflect terribly on us, no matter the cause.”

“You have given this a lot of thought for someone who does not plan to murder me.”

Tsukishima smiles at that, and Tetsurou should be worried, the thought of death seemingly being to him something like entertainment, an old memory.

Tetsurou can’t get himself to care, not when Tsukishima smiles vulnerably, truly, just for Tetsurou’s eyes to see.

Tetsurou can hear birds, here, singing tunes of spring and summer, the forest glowing in translucent shades of green, sunlight covered by thick clouds of leaves. For a second, he entertains the thought of this being what Tsukishima wanted to show him; nature, pure, unaltered, surrounding them. Trees tall and mighty, foliage like a canopy, a protection. The smell indescribable, the smell of woods, simply, fresh and humid and cool, cooler than it was in the field or in the carriage, a relief for the sweat dripping down Tetsurou’s back through his shirt and through his jacket.

Then, Tsukishima stops. Tetsurou doesn’t even stop because of his standstill; Tetsurou stops because he needs a second to take it all in.

There’s a small clearing, barely a clearing at all, to make place for a riverbed, a creek flowing quietly through it, the soft sounds of water hitting rocks and itself, peaceful. It would be normal, would be like any other forest, but the terrain doesn’t pick up the same on the other side — the elevation is sudden, almost a cliff, and it makes it so that from here, the lower side, they can see the sky like the woods were cut into, a cross-section, like they’ve been dissected. Tetsurou sees birds high up in the branches, sees a squirrel traipsing through elevated roots, sees the way sunlight hits and refracts through the mass of trees’ crowns.

If Tetsurou could paint, he would paint this. He wonders why this wasn’t in the book of Karasuno, at all, because this is more than he can take in. It’s earth and water and air, it’s the way sunlight turns into a million different colours, it’s harsh and soft and beautiful.

“If you had given me more of a warning, I might have taken you somewhere better,” Tsukishima says, somewhere off to the side. Tetsurou would stop and look, but he can’t stop watching the way there’s life developing in front of him, birds singing and jumping, a dragonfly buzzing along the surface of the water. “There is a natural pool a bit further into the countryside, so if we had left early in the morning, we could have been there by now. I like it here, however. The magic of the mundane.”

Tetsurou turns, finally, and he cannot seem to find the words. Tsukishima has sat down on a rock, a clear spot free of moss and dirt, like he’s used to sitting there. Tetsurou won’t bother; he falls sitting next to him, still in awe of something that Tsukishima calls mundane, but that Tetsurou has never seen before.

“Forests aren’t like this, in Nekoma,” he decides to say, finally. “This full of life, this luscious. We mostly have pine and cedar, more needles than leaves, evergreen, and so nothing looks like this. You say this is not the best you could show me, Tsukishima, but you have no idea how beautiful this is to me.”

Tsukishima snorts.

Tetsurou turns, and Tsukishima’s looking up at the trees, trying to see the marvel that this is through Tetsurou’s eyes. After a second, Tetsurou realises Tsukishima hasn’t noticed he’s looking at him. Tetsurou uses the opportunity to take him in, lit green and gold by the sun through a filter, his hair made of sunlight, his skin made of love.

“Beauty disappears with familiarity,” Tsukishima says, sadly, a bit like he isn’t there at all, like he’s alone and somber.

Tetsurou’s still looking at him when Tsukishima looks back. The way they lock eyes is decisive, but Tetsurou refuses to look away. “Not always.”

There’s something, there, in the second during which Tsukishima holds his gaze. There’s something, in his eyes, golden like the sun but cold like freshwater, something, and Tetsurou’s nearly got it, Tetsurou watches for the way it shifts and changes—

“Well, there’s not much to do,” Tsukishima stands, pulling away so fast it feels aggressive. It leaves Tetsurou empty, void, a gaping hole in his chest where his heart once was. He’s not in love, but his body doesn’t belong to him anymore. “We can leave, already.”

“Tsukishima…”

“Yes?”

Tetsurou wants to bring him back, here, to where he was within touching distance, within kissing distance, forgiveness like a serum on the tip of his tongue. Tetsurou wants to pull him close until they both fall.

“How cold is the river water?”

“Kuroo-san, we will not be going in the river.”

“Ah, please,” Tetsurou grins, and he knows he’s not being true, but he can’t be bothered. “It is hot like hell, summer peaking, and you want to deny me some refreshment?”

“We did not bring swimming garments.”

“I am sure we can fix that.” Tetsurou stands and takes off his jacket, and the blush that immediately goes up to Tsukishima’s cheeks is so rewarding, the way he looks away and coughs, young and pure and innocent. Tetsurou strips down to his undershirt and pants, already so much cooler without the layers of clothes, folding them carefully and setting them atop Tsukishima’s clear spot on the rocks. “See? Come on, Tsukishima, you can look.”

“I would rather not, Kuroo-san.”

Tetsurou can see his ears burning bright, and Tsukishima has a hand up to his face to hide it, even with his back turned to Tetsurou. He likes how easy it is to make Tsukishima blush, to get him flustered and hiding. When he hides, it means he’s vulnerable, means he’s there if Tetsurou approaches him right. When he hides, he’s easier to get to, uncovered even if taking cover.

He steps into the water, and it’s actually not as cold as he’d been expecting. He takes a step further, the water at this point barely hitting above his ankles, not much to bathe in within a creek but the chill of the current floating up his legs and helping him refresh, indeed.

“Tsukishima, please, what’s the harm? Aren’t you warm?”

“I am already used to summers here, Kuroo-san. I’m fine, thank you.”

“You’re gonna leave me here, alone?”

“There’s no point in getting wet if I’m not bothered by the heat.”

“What was that about your reputation as a host?”

Tsukishima pauses; Tetsurou’s getting to him. “I don’t think getting undressed with you in a dirty creek will do much good for either of our reputations.”

If he’s being honest, Tetsurou likes the sound of getting undressed with him, but this is not the point, and not what he’s doing this for. “Tsukishima, I need you to trust me, so that we can befriend each other, so that you can forgive me. If you are always too distant to touch, how can I do that?”

Finally, finally, Tsukishima turns. He’s not looking at Tetsurou, yet, eyes dead set on the ground, but Tetsurou can see him. His face is pink, hidden in the shadow of the trees, and he barely looks like himself. He doesn’t look like sword-sharp words and clouds of civility.

He looks sixteen, shameful, a boy left bare.

“Tsukishima,” Tetsurou says, and his voice involuntarily went down to a whisper. He can hear everything, the birds and the bugs, the wind on the leaves and the water hitting his legs. “Come hither.”

Tsukishima takes a step forward, finally, and the sun hits his hair and face and he looks like an angel. Tetsurou holds his breath, and Tsukishima takes another step.

“Happy?” Tsukishima looks up, finally, and his face goes a little pinker, now, when they’re this close. Tetsurou notices his eyes darting, glancing down quickly, and wants to tell him it’s fine. Wants him to touch.

“Yes. Very.”

Tetsurou reaches for Tsukishima’s forearm, and he lets him. He holds Tsukishima by the wrist, gently pulls him a little closer.

“I am still not getting in the water.”

“I know.” Tetsurou smiles, aware he’s getting somewhere. This is the chance he’s getting, this is the chance he wanted. He still wants to wed him, but now he wants Tsukishima to want it, too. He wants Tsukishima to live life a little fuller, to be a bit more reckless.

Tetsurou’s entire life has been about living everything he’s allowed to. Having a crown’s worth in resources makes it so he doesn’t have to work, therefore he tries to have fun every single day, making every new hour enjoyable, amusing. He’s learned to find entertainment in the big and the small, refusing boredom, denying stagnation. He wants Tsukishima to see it, too. He wants Tsukishima to live days like they’re his last, to feel things because he has nothing to lose, to try and guess and play like he has nothing to worry about.

His face is nearly the same faerie-blood colour of his lips, something from stories, a washed-out pastel. Tetsurou needs him, and takes a step forward.

He stumbles.

The pebbles under his feet roll, give out, and so he slips. The issue is, he’s still holding onto Tsukishima’s arm, and tightens his grip hoping he wouldn’t fall, hoping the prince would support him. In the end, they both fall, soaking through their clothes, rocks scratching Tetsurou’s arms and legs and a bit of the water flowing red with blood for an instant.

“Fuck—” He lets go of Tsukishima’s arm, finally, and tries to put his hand down for some support, feeling water burning through future bruises and injuries. “Fuck, Tsukki, I’m so sorry—”

Tsukishima laughs.

He laughs, the sound the same shade as the sun, like the honeyed smell of the air, frail and powerful like a butterfly’s wings, colourful, vivid. It’s a sound so fresh, so stark, it brings back Tetsurou’s wish to write poetry with it, of it. It’s raw and innocent, secret, as if not even Tsukishima knew he could do that.

“You are unbelievable, Kuroo Tetsurou,” Tsukishima says, putting a hand on Tetsurou’s shoulder for support and lifting himself up. Tetsurou feels his fingers, for a second, splayed against his skin, digging into the dip of his collar, and he glows red in an instant.

Tsukishima had never touched him before. His skin is so warm, it sets him on fire.

“I’ve heard that before,” Tetsurou says, fighting the stutter in his tone, struggling to keep his composure. “In every meaning possible.”

Tsukishima gets out of the creek, squeezing the sleeves of his jacket until water drips all at once, rivulets of it running down the curve of his arm to the tips of his fingers. “I believe I might mean all of them.”

“Thank you for the ones you mean nicely, and the same to you for the ones you do not.” Tetsurou climbs out of the creek, his garments now stained with mud and moss, drenched, but he doesn’t mind, doesn’t think he can. It’s the refreshment he wanted, at least.

“You don’t mean it,” Tsukishima says. When Tetsurou looks at him, he’s taken his jacket off, and Tetsurou needs a second to catch his breath. The ruffles on his shirt, the hem sewn with gold, make him look like a forest spirit, like the faerie of his blood. “You know I am not the same as you, so you do not mean it.”

“Tsukki,” Tetsurou whines, lets it trail off, and wonders how Tsukishima would react to his first name. “Did we not go through this when we met? I still think we are on the same level, something alike. And you are still more than free to call me Tetsurou, whenever you want to.”

“Well, I still think that is impolite.” Tsukishima sighs and leans against a tree.

Oh, to kiss him, right now. To kiss him with the force of nature, like a gust of wind, to take him off his feet and hold him higher, stronger. To touch him — to feel the warmth of his face, and the still-cool of his fingertips, fresh off the water. To sneak a hand up his back, beneath the wet fabric of his blouse, refusing to let it stick to his skin, warming him up everywhere he touched. To turn him into art and poetry, undo him into song.

“You don’t have to be polite with me, Tsukishima. One day, we’ll be friends.”

Tetsurou wonders if the day is today. They sit on the rocks, in the sun, air-drying clothes still on their body and making conversation, all the things Tetsurou wants to know about Tsukishima finding answers, like what’s the magic of gardening, or how he likes being a prince. There’s no way they’re not growing close, or at least growing closer, there’s no way he’s not earning Tsukishima’s trust, sneaking up on forgiveness. This, this is entirely platonic, entirely rational and enjoyable, nothing of the fast pulse and frantic stuttering of the proposal, nothing of too bad at all.

Even though they probably take at least an hour to come back, the coachman doesn’t look worried. When he walks closer, Tetsurou notices he’s fallen asleep, snoring with his head tilted back against the carriage.

Tsukishima looks up at the sky. “We have probably missed lunch.”

“I’m sure we’ll find a way. And, Tsukishima?”

“Mm?”

He turns and, even though he’s not smiling anymore, the smile is still there. In the colour of his eyes, in the freshness of his air. He hasn’t put his jacket back on; his smile’s in the way the flimsy fabric of his shirt shows so much of his figure, his shoulders wide like a man’s but skinny like a boy’s, all teenaged incongruences, thin and strong and rosy.

“Thank you for bringing me here. For showing me this.” He wants to add another sorry, wants to apologise again for all he’s done, but he knows Tsukishima can already read it in his eyes. He thinks he’s getting somewhere, he truly does.

“You asked,” Tsukishima shrugs. “Aren’t I supposed to be a good host?”

“Tsukishima, you know this is more than that. You don’t owe me anything, and you still brought me here.”

“I don’t have to owe you something to be polite.”

“Are you just being polite?”

Tsukishima frowns, and Tetsurou takes a step forward. “I don’t follow, Kuroo-san.”

“Can’t we be friends, Tsukishima? Can’t we— Can you forgive me? Have you?”

There’s a pause; Tetsurou can hear the air, even when it’s stale. He can hear the buzz of the sun, of bugs in the forest, and even the murmur of the river far, far away.

“You are not yet forgiven,” Tsukishima says, and his face turns into stone. That dry look, apathetic, that makes him know he’s fucked up. Like Kenma’s. “I’m giving you a chance, testing your worth. Am I not the one who is supposed to decide when forgiveness comes? Why do you keep asking, pushing, pressuring me?”

It’s an effort for Tetsurou not to bring up walls, to flirt and taunt, to stay truthful. He has to grit his teeth and suffer through it, an ache in his stomach like his spine’s breaking, his organs tearing. “Because the guilt eats me up,” he says, low, almost a growl, sickly. “And I never wanted to hurt you.” I never do, he thinks, still the low hum of a crush and of a feeling in his throat, the want, the need, never having left.

Tsukishima’s face softens, erodes, but it’s barely visible. If Tetsurou wasn’t watching so closely, he would have missed it. “I can’t help you yet, Kuroo. But I promise, I swear, I’ll forgive you if—” Tsukishima stops, interrupts himself, and lets out a huge breath. “When it’s worth it.”

Tetsurou’s chest burns with the afternoon sun. “I’ll be waiting.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3iwDRfcSSE2pJA8eU6nnoz?si=Vwm403MnTg2COagXxBKYkQ)

The palace is alive with preparations for the party, even days before its actual date — supposed to happen on Tetsurou’s last night, simultaneously a celebration of his presence and a happy goodbye, a come-back-soon. Tetsurou doesn’t catch much of a break, goes out hunting with the king and crown prince, spends an afternoon in the library with the queen, gets visits from low nobles and lords that came from far away to see him, without invitations to the party. For a week that he wished would be spent with Tsukishima, earning his forgiveness and getting to know him better, he doesn’t see him all that much.

He sees him during meals, smiles at him across the table and leaves words in his sentences only he will catch up with, only he will understand. Tsukishima doesn’t smile back, looks down at his food like Tetsurou isn’t here, but Tetsurou learns to tell when he’s amused and when he’s annoyed.

Poetry comes from him involuntarily whenever he gets the chance to stop. He visits the library and fills pages with beauty he didn’t even know he could create, narrates the clearing in more ways than he knew was possible, describes every single shade of Tsukishima like he’s every drop of a rainbow, like he’s oils and watercolour and ink.

He rips out a piece of a page in the middle of the week and writes,  _ how long has it been? meet me in the library after the night has fallen. even if you don’t come, know i’ll wait until dawn.  _ He talks to the head cook, once again, and asks for some food to be readied for the middle of the night, giving her his best smile. She doesn’t even question him — is it out of guestship, respect, hierarchy, or kindness? — and assures him she’ll leave cakes and sandwiches and fruit ready for consumption, waiting for him to pick them up in the kitchen. He thanks her with his whole heart, and spends the rest of the day jittery, anxious, wondering if Tsukishima has read his note and if he’s coming, if he cares, if their outing was a mistake or an exception, if Tsukishima won’t show up after all.

Tsukishima shows up in his sleeping clothes, loose and purple like only a prince would wear, satin, and Tetsurou nearly drops to his knees.

“Your Highness,” he says, instead, because his mind melts. He thinks of all the poetry he’s written, pages and pages of loving someone he can’t love yet, and it all deserves to go to waste now that he’s seen Tsukishima, like this, under this light.

There’s no reply as Tsukishima walks closer, looking like something you’d only see in the middle of the night, a creature, a myth. He’s not wearing his glasses.

He says, “Tetsurou,” teasing, finally complying to Tetsurou’s very first request.

Tetsurou sits, pretending his knees didn’t give out on him.

When he first asked Tsukishima to call him Tetsurou, Tsukishima hadn’t been himself yet, hadn’t been this, a boy too perfect to be true, and yet flawed and true and human. He had been a presence at a ball, had been a guest in his kingdom, someone for Tetsurou to have under his hands and scrap, throw away, just another boy with royal blood and a peasant’s mouth, sinful, unholy.

Tetsurou can’t stand his own name in his voice, now, on his lips. He feels like he’s dirtying something sacred, spoiling something pure with mortal blood and scum.

“Are you all right?”

He looks up, Tsukishima’s eyes too close, his worry too genuine. He scoffs, smiles, putting all of his walls back up simply at the gut reaction that being called his given name gave him. Unprecedented. “Yes, of course, just… Felt faint for a second. All better.”

“Huh,” Tsukishima says, and Tetsurou knows he doesn’t believe him. He sits down beside him, the tables on the library’s lounge pushed to the wall and allowing them enough space for a tapestry and pillows, plush and velvet, with the big basket of the cook’s treats between them. “What do we have here?”

“Nothing much.” Tetsurou still feels weak, a presence roaming in his stomach, but he feigns strength, won’t let his walls drop. “Wanted to talk to you again. Isn’t that what I came here for?”

“Is it not your own fault for being such a popular prince? Your own fault for being so highly requested?”

“I didn’t know your father would throw a party for my presence. I didn’t know my being here would be an event, instead of maybe a secret.”

“If you weren’t a prince, then yes, maybe you could have been a secret. But not only are you a prince, Kuroo-san,” a name which settles Tetsurou’s heart, relieves his chest of the prospect of hearing himself inside Tsukishima’s mouth again, “you’re the crown prince of a kingdom much richer and stronger than ours. You’re wanted.”

“Are you calling me a bachelor? Do you want me?” Tetsurou taunts. It’s too much, he notices, too soon, a ghost covering Tsukishima’s face with something like guilt or disdain. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I mean,” Tsukishima says, an instant correction, “people would love to own your head. Trust me when I say my father has been looking out for you, your Highness, because even if they submit, he doesn’t trust the country’s lords one bit. One could kill you to snatch your crown, to blame my father and rob him of  _ his _ crown, without a moment’s notice.”

“Living a dangerous life, aren’t I?”

“It’s the price we pay,” Tsukishima shrugs, reaching inside the basket. “Hell, this is marvellous.”

“Credit your chef, not me.”

“Don’t worry,” Tsukishima looks away from the food, looks at him with the most ironic smile Tetsurou’s ever seen, “I wasn’t crediting you.”

Tetsurou laughs; a wall comes down.

“Is the fact that you’re cruel to me an indicator of increasing closeness?”

Tsukishima sticks a biscuit into his mouth without biting, and licks frosting off the tip of his thumb. “Probably so,” he says, mouth full with food, his words frosted and decorated. “What is the indicator on your part?”

His desperate want to be true, the guilt, the blame he puts on himself for ever making Tsukishima look sad and desolate like he did the other night, the fact that he looks at Tsukishima with fear of love instead of desire, the way Tsukishima makes him feel things instead of imitate them—

“I mean what I say to you,” he says, guessing. “Less joking and flirting.”

“You don’t argue with me to provoke me?”

“I never said less provocation,” Tetsurou grins, finally taking an apple from the basket and taking a bite.

“You said less joking. You’re always being serious?”

“There is a difference between joking and provoking.”

“Which is?”

“One is to spite you.”

Tsukishima hums, waiting for him to go on. When Tetsurou says nothing, he asks, “And the other?”

“To spite you in a different manner.”

That gets a laugh out of him; Tetsurou considers it a success. “How mature of you, Kuroo-san. The way a crown prince, a man of age and honour, should be.”

“Thank you, your Highness. I have been training for this moment since the day I was born.”

“What moment?”

What moment? What’s the answer? Tetsurou could come up with several — falling in love, being with you, learning to be. A midnight picnic with the boy he’s head over heels for, with another kingdom’s prince, eating their food and in their palace, almost a safer place than his own home.

He could say all of that, and mean it to some extent. Half truth and half joking, projecting, hiding, isn’t enough, not for this moment, right now.

“This,” he points to all around them, waves through the room, the glass wall exposing a sky the colour of shadows, fields just a tone greyer. The library’s comforting, still warm from the daytime sun, homey in thick wood and endless pages, a getaway in the eye of the storm. “All of this. Right now.”

“What is this?”

“Tsukishima,” Tetsurou says, and looks right into his eyes. Tsukishima doesn’t want to push forward, shouldn’t want to push forward. Tetsurou wants to kiss him, to have him, so bad it’s sickening; he won’t allow himself, not without forgiveness, not without trust and respect and consent. “You don’t want to know.”

“Am I not in it right now? In this?”

“Do we always have to know what’s happening, what we’re living, every moment? Should we label every waking second?”

“I would like it so, yes.”

“Tsukishima, live a little. How happy can your life be if you’re too worried about what it is, too worried about what it means, instead of going through it without worries?”

“Worrying is normal.”

“Yes, sometimes. But not if you let it stop you from living — stop you from enjoying things. What’s stopping you, Tsukishima? Is it yourself?”

“Why must talking to you turn into arguing?”

“It mustn’t. We can agree to disagree — we can change the subject.”

“Can we?”

“Are you scared, Tsukishima?”

Tetsurou feels bad for pushing, he does, but he can’t help it. He’s close to Tsukishima, he knows, he can feel it, close to an answer, close to a truth, but he won’t get anywhere if he doesn’t push a little. The question that remains is how little is too far, or how far is a little.

“Can we change the subject, Kuroo-san?”

He smiles. Maybe there’s a point in stopping before it is too far; maybe prevention is the best medicine.

“Which of these do you like the best?” He points towards the basket, and Tsukishima nearly jumps at the chance of changing the subject. He smiles too, just a shadow, and leans forward to inspect his options.

“I am quite the lover of strawberries…”

Tetsurou falls asleep when it’s nearly dawn, but he falls asleep wondering how little is too far. He falls asleep thinking of what strawberries must taste like on another person’s lips, and dreams of wedding cakes and sky-blue garments. He dreams of the way Tsukishima looked, basked in darkness, no candles burning but the room lit up by the moon and stars outside, big and bright white, the cleanest mirror. He dreams of the golden of his eyes and how he would look if he was dipped in gold, a sculpture, art, a piece to last them thousands of years, a landmark for humankind.

He forgets all about it by the time he wakes up.

  
  


As much as he loves parties and glamour, Tetsurou doesn’t think he deserves all of this. It isn’t his birthday or any occasion of the like, he’s just here; and yet, more than twenty people sit around a table, a gorgeous banquet laid out in front of them, all because of his presence in this kingdom.

During the day, as the guests had been arriving from their homes and estates, he was so wrapped up in greeting and conversation that he felt constantly out of breath, even a bit out of place. Tetsurou likes people, likes parties, likes the way they’re all predictable and in love with him, in all their many ways. But still, it can become too much, and he has to pace himself with it. When the overwhelming sensation starts, he excuses himself from the slowly growing group of nobles and goes to his room, an excuse of having to get ready early.

He dives into the bath, the smell of mint and cinnamon wafting through the air between the steam, and lets the warm water work on all of his nerves, relaxing every single one of his muscles.

He thinks of the passing week, thinks of getting to know Karasuno’s system and history, getting to know Karasuno’s people, talking to the king and queen and crown prince. Of course, even better were all the moments he got to spend with Tsukishima, sitting across the table at breakfast and making snide remarks once they were the only ones left, talking under the sun next to the creek while their clothes dried against their bodies, discussing books and plays with the infinite night’s sky in front of them.

Tetsurou picks up some pages of poetry, kept under a book by the bath’s side, and flips through them. All these words, all his words, describing a boy he now knows, at least a bit. The dread, the desperation to be in love, to be true, to not be living feelings because he wanted to or felt like he should be, but simply because he is.

He’s in love with Tsukishima, he’s aware. It’s been four months since the first time they saw each other, and a week since he finally started to get to know him, for once. Tetsurou wants to wed him just the same as he did months ago, wants to make him king because he trusts him, knows him, and hopes he gets the world and stars, everything he deserves.

He wonders if Tsukishima has forgiven him, if Tsukishima will ever fall for him, back. At least, he’s got time to work on it.

When he exits the bath, he finds a suit laid out on his bed, his room empty. The note on top of it reads,  _ the fabric of your dreams _ , in Tsukishima’s neat royal handwriting.

The fabric of his dreams—

That’s his own quote, a quote from one of his poems, a poem he wrote in anticipation of the night he spent by Tsukishima’s side, a poem he forgot on top of one of the library tables. Tsukishima’s read it, now, seen the most unpolished expression of his affection, a love made of imagination and wonder, made of excitement, anxiousness.

And yet, here lie garments of Tsukishima’s choosing, red like strawberries or like blood. Tetsurou runs his hand across the jacket, and it’s likely the softest material he’s ever felt, like a cloud, like a dream.

Tsukishima read his poem, and didn’t pull away. Read his poem and responded with a display of love, or at least of closeness, like he didn’t mind at all. Tetsurou doesn’t let himself entertain the thought of reciprocated feelings, the thought of compliance and accompliceship, because he knows how he could spiral, too hopeful.

He puts on the clothes, the perfect fit, and wonders how Tsukishima knew without having it flush-bodilied tailored. He feels spectacular, the garments soft against his skin, rich, and he could be coronated, right now. He’s ready to face endless crowds; twenty or so nobles are anything compared to the power he feels like he holds, right this instant.

The party starts slow, the feast settling everyone down, the food even fresher and riper than Tetsurou had been eating for the past week, and he hadn’t even known that was possible. Some of the guests, sons and daughters of lords, youths that have turned to commerce and urban trading, teach him what each dish is, talk to him about their lives, their flirting obvious and admirable.

Tetsurou can’t stop looking at Tsukishima, and hoping he’ll look back.

Conversations only rise, grow, cross-table and cross-groups, people inserting themselves into others’ chatter and laughs spread easily across the room. Tetsurou smiles and does his best to learn all of their names, Daichi and Koushi, Yui and Mao, sweet and kind and funny, people of peculiar characters and easy-going smiles. He feels at home, all of these people around his age, the familiarity of low nobles sucking up to him, even if they do it in their own way. With their words, they acknowledge his status, but never make him feel as powerful as the people of Nekoma do. It’s refreshing, like everything about Karasuno ends up being. A reality Tetsurou falls in love with.

Speaking of love, Tsukishima still hasn’t looked up at him. Tsukishima immerses himself in other talks, sitting as far from Tetsurou as possible, looking away at all times. It’s not like he’s pulling away, or like he’s mad. He keeps his face within Tetsurou’s field of vision, turned just slightly so that he can keep him in the corner of his eyes, not like he wants to never see him again. It’s all deliberate, taunting, like everything ends up being with the two of them, first with talking, then with touching and now even with looking each other’s way.

They relocate to the ballroom once everyone has finished eating and spent a while simply talking, digesting. The palace’s ballroom isn’t nearly as big and extravagant as Tetsurou’s at home, but nothing here really is. It’s big, as any ballroom must be, decorated with tapestries on every wall except the outer one, which has windows that go from floor to ceiling, all across, interrupted by slivers of stone to hold up lights beyond the traditional chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Tetsurou breaks in the dancefloor with Akiteru, the two crown princes of an alliance, a friendship. It’s a symbol that Tetsurou doesn’t mind being a part of, wants to make true, even if in other ways — marriage has always been an age-old manner to seal a deal.

The others come to the floor next, the king and queen, and select pairings of all the guests. Tetsurou leaves, after a while, even if he enjoys dancing tremendously. It’s tiring, draining, all the smiles and the waltzing, all the people, and he can only do it for so long.

Plus, he sees Tsukishima off by himself, and there is no way he can waste such a chance.

“Avoiding me, your Highness?”

Tsukishima puts down his drink and smiles. Tetsurou wants to eat him alive, to destroy him, in the best possible meaning. He’s wearing gold and white, nearly the same colours as his skin and hair, and yet he looks beautiful, he stands out. It might just be Tetsurou’s eyes, or it might be the difference in design of this room compared to its twin at Nekoma. At Nekoma, Tsukishima blended in, soft and pastel-toned, faded, light, but here the room is dark, rich, wood-paneled walls and windows revealing the night sky, foreign tapestries of dark string and intense pigments, and a Tsukishima of white and gold stands out.

“I would never.”

“How lovely to hear.” Tetsurou grins back at him, and he can feel the bite on both their voices, words laced with poison and mutiny. “You wouldn’t avoid a dance with me, then?”

“I think we have gone through this before, Kuroo-san.”

“Have you not had a change of heart?”

“Haven’t you?”

“I will always want to dance with you, Tsukishima.”

“Will my no ever suffice?”

“Don’t take me as a man of giving up.”

“I never have.”

Tetsurou extends his hand, smiling. He’s in love, and he doesn’t care. “Will you grace upon me the pleasure of dancing with you?”

With a smile, Tsukishima places his hand on his, in his, and rolls his eyes. “I guess so.”

Tetsurou holds him close, and looks straight into his eyes as they sway, pulling away and pulling apart. They change pairs, he dances with Koushi for a second, and then he’s back flush against Tsukishima.

Tsukishima’s hand holds tight against his waist; he says, “Nice choice of clothing,” and Tetsurou loves, loves, loves.

“Thank you. It was a gift.”

“Oh? From whom?”

Tetsurou considers the fabric of his dreams and the Tsukishima that holds him close despite all his words and all the images, despite all the love he poured as ink. This Tsukishima won’t mind, this Tsukishima isn’t the same as before. This Tsukishima lives, loves, and Tetsurou wants him so bad he won’t mind the ruins of kingdoms.

“A loved one.”

He can tell he takes Tsukishima a little aback, but he only gets a hum in response before the two of them get separated again. Tetsurou goes through an entire round of people, some he didn’t even catch the name of, before he gets to hold Tsukishima again. Tsukishima doesn’t say anything, doesn’t actually respond.

Tetsurou breaks the silence with, “What do you think of their taste, your Highness?”

“It’s a nice fabric,” Tsukishima says, slow and ponderate, “very traditional. A bit of a bold colour choice, though.”

“Not fit for a king?”

Tsukishima snorts, a laugh that could be ugly if it weren’t his. Tetsurou thinks he might have been the only one to catch it, and he doesn’t want to share it with a soul. “You are not a king, Kuroo.”

“Not yet,” Tetsurou shrugs, “but I already have a king’s blood in me. Isn’t that what the colour of my garments is supposed to represent? My blood?”

There’s another laugh, and Tetsurou wants to chase them like they’re a lifeline, like they can keep him afloat. “Not strawberries?”

“Blood is more poetic, no?”

“Depends on how you put it.” They part, spin, and hold each other close again. “Strawberries can be poetry just as well — sweet but sour, staining lips, overpowering. Red, like blood, but like passion. They can be lust or grace, you simply have to choose.”

“You are better at this than I am.”

“Don’t say that.” Tsukishima frowns, then eases his face into a grin, tearing Tetsurou’s chest wide open. “You are plenty good.”

“Thank you—” Tetsurou slides into Daichi’s arms and watches Tsukishima get pulled into Yui’s, separated in the middle of his sentence. He sighs, dances with Daichi with a grin and humour, and switches pairs until he’s up with Tsukishima once again.

Except he reunites with Daichi, twirls Yui in his own arms, and he doesn’t see Tsukishima. He scans the floor, scans the entire room, and Tsukishima vanished into thin air, disappeared. He dances with the queen for a solid while, asks Akiteru if he saw his brother go somewhere, but nothing.

It takes him a few more drinks and perhaps a few more hours, but eventually he stops worrying, and gives up. He holds Tsukishima’s voice close to his chest, the memory of his smiles and compliments, and decides that, for the sake of these memories, he’ll enjoy the rest of this party, in his own name, in his own honour. He has until dawn, has a few hours more of enjoyment in this kingdom that he now loves, and he can’t let them go to waste. He holds girls in his arms and loves, is held by boys and loves, eats more and drinks more and dances until he has to take his shoes off, and a little longer with just his socks on.

He’s in love, he’s in love, he’s in love, but he’s young and he’s reckless. Life is more than love, and it is to be lived.

Eventually, so mixed up in what becomes the joy of young and old people alike, he forgets about the boy he’s here for, and the forgiveness he so yearns for. He enjoys himself, and may it all be damned.

  
  


Dawn sneaks up on him before he has the chance to be aware of it. He notices the party ending, fading, waning, notices guests who smile breathlessly and thank him as they leave, notices the energy slowly depleting from all of their bodies, despite the incessant buzz of champagne and music. It was still the evening as long as they wanted it to be, but all that’s good once comes to an end.

The sky is greying sunrise when he sneaks away to the library, to watch it for one last time. He should bathe, since he is leaving shortly after the sun comes up, but he cannot be bothered. He sits on the floor of the library, in the exact same spot he shared with Tsukishima in the middle of the night, even if now without the blankets and the food, and watches Karasuno through the crystal wall.

He hears the door open and close, and doesn’t turn around to check who it is. Once again, he can’t be bothered, but now he has a pretty optimistic guess of who he thinks this is.

“You’re leaving,” Tsukishima says, sitting beside him. Tetsurou sighs, but he’s smiling; the sky turns yellow at the corners, like paint seeping through, and the sun starts yawning its way up the horizon.

“Thank you for having me.”

“You invited yourself.”

“I did not,” Tetsurou says, laughing. This is so easy, and he is so tired, there’s no way he could give it that much effort. He cannot be bothered to be anything but happy. “I asked for a chance, and you invited me to spend a week here. There are countless other ways this could have been handled.”

“This was the easiest.”

“I think it was the nicest, at least. Your family and kingdom are lovely, Tsukishima, thank you for allowing me to come.”

There’s silence, and the question presses itself into the air, into their lungs. Tetsurou’s body, even despite its calmness, longs for forgiveness, and longs for the boy next to him. He doesn’t regret a thing as long as Tsukishima will still take him, and he wants to know if he will. He wants to know if the boy who read his poem and liked it, if the boy who left him special garments on his bed, if the boy who took him to the most beautiful place he’s ever been — he wants to know if that boy wants him back.

He looks at Tsukishima, and he looks sad. He looks glum, blue, his face tainted with worry and weight, heavy.

“Tsukishima?”

Tsukishima turns to him, and Tetsurou wants to dive into his eyes. Tetsurou wants to relieve him of all sadness and evil.

“What’s wrong?”

Tsukishima’s eyes are sad, but he closes them. For a second, less than second, an instant, Tetsurou’s confused. Then, Tsukishima’s lips touch his, and he can’t help but close his eyes too.

It’s a kiss dripping with wanton, and sorrow. It’s a kiss of unexpectedness; Tetsurou needs a second to recover, and then he reaches for the back of Tsukishima’s head, cradles it, and pulls him closer. Tsukishima puts his hands on his shoulders for stability, and a Tetsurou that had lost his breath when Tsukishima had touched his shoulder back in the creek now only breathes because he’s breathing in Tsukishima’s air. He kisses him like he’s been practicing for years, like all the people he’s kissed before were only training to get to his moment, now.

He wishes he could think of anything to describe this moment, to describe the way Tsukishima’s mouth slots against his, describe all the sounds and presses, but he can’t. He runs out of words, out of poetry, out of feelings, becomes a beast and a maniac.

Tsukishima pulls away with his eyes still closed, and Tetsurou opens his own with hesitance. They’re barely apart, a breath’s width, but Tsukishima speaks, voice hitting his lips like air flickering above the fire, “I forgive you.”

Tetsurou won’t dare say a thing.

“I forgive you for the proposal, Kuroo. And I trust you, now— you’ve pulled me down with you.”

“Made you fall?”

Tsukishima laughs, but it’s short and dry and as sad as he seems to be. “Yes. You’re unbelievable.”

Tetsurou smiles because he can’t not smile, and he slides his hand until he cups Tsukishima’s jaw, soft and hopeful. He waits until Tsukishima opens his eyes, his insecurity and fear showing in the curve of his eyebrows, and in the part of his lips. Tetsurou wants to kiss it away. “Will you call me Tetsurou, now?”

“Haven’t I, already?”

He has, right here, in this exact same spot. He has, and Tetsurou’s knees had gone weak, but now he feels stronger than the sun.

“You can make it a regular thing.”

“I like referring to you formally, your Highness,” Tsukishima says, but he doesn’t mean it. A small smile blooms on his face, a tease, and Tetsurou wants to kiss him until the dawn of the apocalypse.

“And I want you to refer to me intimately.” He reaches down with his free hand, and laces his fingers with Tsukishima’s. His hand is cold, and Tetsurou holds it tight to warm it up.

“Tetsurou,” Tsukishima says, finally. Tetsurou kisses him, quick, and when he pulls away it’s like he left Tsukishima stranded, awe-stricken and waiting for more.

“That’s nice.”

“You don’t plan on calling me Kei, do you?”

“Not if you’re against it. I can stick with Tsukki, if that is more to your liking.”

Tsukishima breathes, like he’s pondering, and kisses him again. Tetsurou doesn’t think he could ever mind this, kisses in the heat of the moment, just because they can. He’s in love, he thinks. They’re in love.

“If you control yourself, you can call me Kei. Do not overdo it.”

“What would be overdoing it?”

“Can’t you dose your words, Kuroo-san?” Tetsurou pouts and kisses him; Tsukishima sighs. “Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou kisses him again, longer, slower. He whispers, against his lips, “Kei.” It makes Tsukishima push closer, like he wants him, and Tetsurou can’t complain.

The one bad thing about sunrise is that it happens so quickly. Tetsurou feels like only seconds pass until the two of them feel the sun warm on their faces, dulled by the glass but burning nonetheless, a wake-up call.

“You’re leaving,” Tsukishima says, words laced in strawberries and honey. His kisses are sweet, but his voice is still sad.

“My carriage is probably waiting, yes.”

“I’m glad you came.”

Tetsurou knows it’s too early to say he loves him, but he does. It can only be love, the feeling sweet and comforting in his chest, a belonging, the feeling he had watched unfold in front of him back home, Hinata and Kenma made of slow lingering touches and the need, the want, to spend a life together.

“I’m glad I came, too.” He brings Tsukishima’s hand up to his lips, and kisses it, gently. “I’ll see you.”

Tsukishima smiles, a quiet move even if it never makes any sound at all. It’s discreet, subtle, and more complex than Tetsurou can understand, awake for nearly an entire day and still high on alcohol and kisses.

“Godspeed.”

Tetsurou falls asleep in the carriage on his way home, still in the silk-soft garments he wore to the party, still with the ghost feeling of Tsukishima’s lips against his own. He picks up where he left off in the dreams he’s forgotten, a boy in the darkness with a touch of fire, lips of sugar, now bringing him into the light and kissing him feather-light, made of clouds, a mix between dreams and reality, measured to the exact amount.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! a kudo, a bookmark or a comment will make my day so much brighter. you can also hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenhinabot)


	5. Chapter 5

_ To your Highness, Tsukishima Kei, prince of Karasuno; _

_ It has merely been hours since we parted, at dawn, and I have just arrived at home. Still, I immediately ran to my quarters and brought out my quill, because I have so much I have to tell you, so much I was too busy loving you to say. I could have told you so much, Kei, but I could not bring myself to leave your lips to add words I can still speak from here. I cannot kiss you, now, so it must finally be my chance to speak. _

_ You never quite told me what you thought of my poems. You said I am a good poet, but that is not nearly sufficient if you take into consideration the thousands of words I must have written for you. Please be aware that, now that you’ve forgiven me and kissed me like such, another layer of reticence will be peeled off me and I will love you, speak to you, shameless. Now, I will not be afraid to confess my love in all the lines that I’ve tried to put it in, I will not be afraid to show you everything you have meant to me, even if in the beginning it wasn’t nearly as genuine as it is now. Now, I will write more, and send you all of my love, because I want to show you that I mean it. Beforehand, I was very likely simply projecting, choosing you to be the object of an affection probably unwanted by yourself, but now allow me to try again. You have forgiven me, after all. _

_ Kei, in this envelope are some of my earliest poems, my earliest attempts at demonstrating my love for you. I will try not to make myself too long in this letter, for I am hopeful we will be trading more and because I have to meet with my family for supper quite soon, so forgive me for my rather rushed words. I will simply write a bit of what I feel, before I have the time to write that into more poetry and shallow lines, and will try to explain a bit of what was going on when I met you, at my mother’s ball. _

_ Tsukishima Kei, _

_ Princeship to me has always been about flattery and adulation, the power of the crown in my hands, and everyone around me begging for a piece of that power to be graced upon them, even if here we do not have lordships like you do in Karasuno. I have never been denied much, and so your refusal to dance with me — in my kingdom, in my palace — was a shock that made me think of you as more than simply a pretty face and a powerful suitor. When I first saw you, when I first said my  _ hello _ , you were simply a man of gorgeousness and poetry. You awoke poetry within me like any beautiful person already had, before, but then you said no and walked away. You brought me down and made me fall. _

_ Before I visited you again, before I travelled through both of our lands to admire your constitution once again, I tried my hand at putting into words all the poetry, all the art you made into blossoms inside my chest. In this envelope, there is the very first poem of you that I wrote, and the way I will always think of you on that first night — a boy made out of fresco, made by an artisan’s hands and sculpted into perfection. My apologies if these texts are too irrational, if I sound worryingly passionate, but understand that I was, I was. I was a mad man because you had told me no, and I hadn’t worried about what it truly meant to love yet. _

_ I visited you, and didn’t have a change of heart. I only talked to you once, only wanted to talk to you again, and kept in my head the exact same figure of a man of grace and perfection, less a man than an idea. I thought I’d fallen, thought I’d found the one, even though I barely knew you yet. I was so sure, so absolutely confident that you would fall for me as well and that you’d take me for your husband, forgetting that you had been the one person who had denied me already. _

_ I waited, and only came on the solstice. I proposed to you that night, too anxious to be rational, my words and dreams stronger than I was, hurtful to you. And I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I spent the first week back thinking of how to apologise and the next week drafting and scrapping an apology. I poured all of my heartbreak into the few lines of my first letter to you, and hoped that I could maybe do you right. The months of not knowing you and being falsely enamoured by the you I thought you were, Kei, don’t feel like a waste to me. They were learning, filled with poetry and feelings that I needed to have to learn that they were wrong and that they weren’t true. _

_ My love, I now know what it feels like to love and be loved. Know that my feelings for you have always been so deep, even when wrongly so, have always been so much more than I could handle, and so I simply chose not to handle them and then drown you in misguided words. Know that, even though I do not regret going through this, I apologise sincerely, because you did not deserve to be sorrowed by the misdoings of a foolish adolescent such as I am. _

_ Kei, _

_ Know that my love for you now is weightless and boundless, and the truest thing I have ever known. Know that my love for you is more than I can put in words, and trust that this will not keep me from trying. Know that, when I write you these, I am simply eager to put all of me in a way that you can read and know and understand, because I feel you are capable of unraveling me to my very soul, and I beg you to do so. If someone on this Earth can know me, I know it’s you, and I need your help to know myself better. I am thankful to you for already helping me do that, even if not consciously. _

_ My apologies for quite the lengthy letter. One could say I’m in love. _

_ Yours, Tetsurou of Nekoma. _

_ To your Highness, Kuroo Tetsurou, prince of Nekoma; _

_ My, my, aren’t you quite the wordy one, your Highness? _

_ I won’t lie and say I didn’t smile once while reading your words. Say, Tetsurou, do you see yourself as a bit of a fool, lovesick and passionate? Because you do sound like one, in life and in letters. How could one even fall for you? _

_ Perhaps you should talk to a doctor. Lovesickness doesn’t have its name for no reason. Also, all that projection of yours, building your affection out of other poets’ words, in no way can be a safe way to lead your life. _

_ I might not have your way with words, but I will say that I miss the taste of your lips. Your presence here almost made everything seem worth it. I miss you, Tetsurou. I never thought I’d say this, but I do. What have you done to me, disgracing me in such a manner? _

_ Maybe you should come here once again to see if I’ll forgive you for it. You have new ways to beg. _

_ Tsukishima Kei. _

_ To Kei; _

_ Who needs a way with words when three lines of you can wreck me? I never thought you’d say it, either. Never thought you’d miss me — as much as I had spent all those months hoping for your love, I didn’t expect it to be like this, genuine. I am not sure if you met Kenma, my cousin, but we are quite close, and I expected you to show your affection a bit like he does. Which is to say, not show it at all, and simply act in a certain intimate manner until the object of your affection catches up.  _

_ I can’t wait to kiss you again. I can’t wait to write you poems, show you poems, of a love now true. I can’t wait to have you here, by my side. I can’t wait until the day when I can propose, once again, and not make a fool of myself doing so. I still want you to the brink of madness, Kei, and I will for the rest of my days. Take it easy on me. _

_ It’s been two days, now, and I still don’t know how I am expected to handle not being with you. I don’t know if I have much to tell, much to say now that all of me is on the table, because I don’t think my daily doings will surprise you very much. I read and write, I watch my father’s meetings, I hunt and I shoot. It’s what I’ve always done, but now it feels even more boring than usual. You’ve spoiled me, shouldn’t you take responsibility? I can’t stand to watch Kenma and Hinata being in love, when you’re all the way in your own palace. Come here, let’s be better than them. _

_ Will you, Kei? Come here? You are more than invited, I’ll let you know. We’re always having guests around, and your presence would be more than lovely, especially considering that I’ve just spent my week there. My mother has been asking, in fact, for more words of you, for more visits from you. Will you come, Kei? Please. Allow me to beg for you. _

_ Yours, until the edge of the world, Tetsurou. _

_ To your Highness, Kuroo Tetsurou, prince of Nekoma, _

_ Are you not getting a bit ahead of yourself, so sure that we’ll marry? Thinking our love will last forever? _

_ But I’ll come. Just tell me when, and I’ll be there. _

_ I can’t believe what you’ve turned me into. I don’t think I will ever believe that I fell for you, of all people. Please make it worth my while. _

_ Your Tsukishima Kei. _

  
  


Tetsurou doesn’t kiss him the moment he gets off the carriage simply because he can’t kiss him out in the open like this. But he looks at him and feels things like he never has before, a revolution in his blood, a turn of tides. Tsukishima’s in dark grey garments, looking tired and washed out, but the setting sun hits his face and Tetsurou could fall to his knees in adoration.

“Those are new glasses,” he says, instead of a greeting, coming down the stairs to meet him at the end of the road.

Tsukishima takes off his silver-rims and rubs his eye, weakly. “They are.”

“How are you?”

“Tired. Couldn’t get much sleep last night.”

Tetsurou offers him his arm, but it surprises him when Tsukishima actually takes it, latches on like he’s in proper need of support. “I can take you to your quarters, right now. Our programmed schedule only has to start tomorrow.”

“We have a programmed schedule?”

“How little did you expect of me, Kei?” They go up the stairs slowly, at Tsukishima's pace. Tetsurou doesn’t stop looking, and doesn’t care anymore. This is the first time, he realises, that he’s allowed to look at Tsukishima, watch him and admire him, without fear or inhibition. He feels a warmth in his gut, desperate to learn every part of him, to map every curve of his skin, but he represses it. He loves chastely, peacefully, loves and longs for the boy now in his arms.

“I didn’t plan anything for your visit. Most of the things we did were things you initiated, as well.”

“Well, we weren’t in love then, were we?”

“Be quiet.”

“There’s no one to hear us. No one that will care — are we a secret?”

Tsukishima sighs, rests his back against the wall when they start going down a hallway. Here, they’re hidden, in the dark, no windows or passages, and Tetsurou reaches for a kiss. Tsukishima holds him back by his shoulder and looks to the sides, checks for any passerby, before he lets himself be kissed.

His lips taste like nothing, but they’re warm like Tetsurou hasn’t felt in so long.

“Not a secret,” Tsukishima says, eyes closed with exhaustion, unbothered to open them even with Tetsurou’s mouth far from his, “but not too public. I don’t… Want to be your cohort.”

“Yet?”

“Mm.” It’s not a response, but Tetsurou can’t mind — Tsukishima tugs him close again, and these kisses are different from the ones they shared in Karasuno, these kisses are slower. There’s something in them, that distilled warmth, but it might just be the slumber slipping through Tsukishima’s tongue. “I missed you.”

“It still is weird to hear you say that, Kei.”

“I did.” Tsukishima sighs again, and finally opens his eyes. His glasses are askew, and Tetsurou reaches up to fix them; he ends up with his hands on each side of Tsukishima’s face, holding him tight and keeping him in place so he won’t come after him when he kisses him, quick, over and over. “Things are better with you around.”

“Keep saying that, and I won’t leave your side ever again.”

He laughs, but it’s sad. Tetsurou wishes he was never like that. “I don’t think that’s possible, Tetsurou.”

“Anything is possible,” he says, frowning.

“I wish that were true.” He doesn’t give Tetsurou time to respond; he backs off from the wall, and follows along the hallway even when Tetsurou doesn’t walk behind him. “Now, where are my quarters?”

Tetsurou drops him off with a kiss, promises to see him in the morning, and heads back to his room. His mind feels cluttered, feels like bookshelves brought down, words and pages scattered and crumpled on the floor. Halfway, he changes paths and doesn’t go back to his own chamber, after all, instead heading straight for Kenma’s.

Kenma is alone inside, which is a bit surprising. “So, your lover’s arrived?”

“Kenma, is Hinata ever sad?”

“Shouyou?” Kenma looks up from the book he’d been reading, some new philosophical theory, and looks at him. Tetsurou, sitting on the chair by his desk, waits intently for an answer. “Probably sometimes. Why?”

“How do you help him?”

Kenma shrugs. “People feel sad, sometimes, Kuro. You can’t take away the burden of their feelings. All you can do is support them and try to bring them joy.”

“There is no instant fix, is there?”

Tetsurou thinks of all the times he’s looked at Tsukishima and felt his sadness, like drowning, like lead weighing him down. He thinks of Tsukishima’s smiles, rarely genuine, rare full laughs, and the way he always seems resistant to live as much as he can. He considers all the happy moments he feels like he’s lived by Tsukishima’s side, back-and-forth arguments of sharp clever words that he doesn’t feel like could go on without some degree of enjoyment.

“There isn’t. There’s only hope.”

He does hope. He walks back to his room and hopes, spills hope the only way he knows how. He writes poem-shaped love letters to Tsukishima, some he feels like he would never be able to share, intimate and desperate but earnest to the death of him, perhaps too true. Words he shouldn’t dare speak, pleading him for happiness, offering him pieces of his own joy. Tetsurou, in his poetry, offers to give him every single ounce of the world, like before, and he’s always thought he deserved it but this, now, is different.

Tetsurou walks to supper feeling drained and ill, having written like those were his dying words. He walks to supper and wishes Tsukishima was awake to sit next to him, wishes there was more to do than hope. Kenma looks at him, during the meal, with something like pity, his own way of being worried. Kenma asks a servant to drop off his favourite book in his room, a selection of poetries that he’s got several copies of in the library, one in each sector just so that it’s easy to access, and he appreciates the love that Kenma shows he feels.

He reads, and feels better. He knows that, had he not put everything down, he would be feeling even worse, running on fumes and negative energy, darkness, ever-expanding inside of him. It was better to deplete it all at once than to feed himself on it, he knows, but the sensation isn’t pleasant either way. He sleeps, and he feels better, recovers slowly, a night spent without dreams.

The sun has barely dawned when he wakes up, the twilight sky still lilac and white. He yawns, and realises there’s a knock at his door, insistent, which explains why it’s still too early for his regular inner clock. It’s too early for anything, truly, and he can’t imagine a single sane person that would wake up at this hour out of anything except necessity.

Tsukishima stands on the other side of the door, smiling softly, still adorned with sleep and wearing his bare garments, his contours and fine lines visible past the fabric. Tetsurou doesn’t mind waking up to this, and doesn’t mind losing his sanity to this, like it’s being washed out of him with tentative hands and lips.

“Your Highness,” Tsukishima says, and his voice sounds rough like he hadn’t used it in centuries. Tetsurou pulls him inside the room, closes the door after him and kisses him, soft.

“What are you doing, already up?”

“Sleeping early makes one wake up early.” Tsukishima walks past him and sits on the bed, and he looks like he could go right back to sleep. He bounces a little, like he’s testing the mattress, and frowns as Tetsurou sits beside him. “Even  _ your _ mattress is bad.”

“It’s not bad!”

“You weren’t lying when you said ours were otherworldly,” Tsukishima chuckles, smirks. “These are a bit… Sad.”

“Kei!”

Tsukishima laughs, and kisses him. All of Tetsurou’s complaints, all of his whines, fade in less than a second.

“What do you want to do today?” Tetsurou pulls his hand into his, and with it tugs Tsukishima a little closer. Tsukishima rests his forehead on his shoulder and, for a second, he can’t breathe, wanting to freeze time and only live in this moment, with the warmth of Tsukishima’s skin against his. When he breathes in, it’s like warmth is a smell, and he smells of wildflowers and strawberries.

“I thought we had a programmed schedule.” Tsukishima’s voice, a breath against his skin, feels like condensation, like dew. Tetsurou wants to kiss him again, taste his exhales, but this isn’t new. He wants to kiss him all the time; if he doesn’t control himself, they won’t do anything but.

“We do… But we don’t have to follow it, really. We can do whatever you like.”

Tsukishima hums. “What do you have planned?”

“I could take you around the palace,” Tetsurou says, shifting his head so he whispers the words against Tsukishima’s skin, like kisses to his neck. “You never got the tour, did you?”

“No. I arrived shortly before the ball, and left before I got the chance to see much.”

“We have a big day ahead of us, then. Breakfast in a bit, and then I’ll show you everything.”

“It’ll take the whole day?” Tsukishima laughs, and lifts his head to look at Tetsurou. He looks so young, untouched by time, by the world. There are those same bags under his eyes, perennial, but his face is still losing the swollenness of sleep. This may be the closest to Tsukishima Tetsurou has ever come, a vulnerability bigger than he’d seen before. Bigger than when he met Tetsurou in the library, the first and second and third times, always when night had been written into their blood. Bigger than under the misty sunlight of the woods, and the hazy candlelight of the Karasuno ballroom. “I knew your place was probably five times bigger than mine, but that’s more than needed for comfort, Tetsurou.”

“It won’t take the whole day,” he sighs, rolling his eyes. “It will take us a while because we’ll be taking our time, but we’re supposed to be finished far before sunset. I was thinking we could maybe watch the stars after night falls.”

“How romantic.”

“Thank you,” Tetsurou grins, and leans in for a kiss, too unbothered, any filter he could maybe have disappearing with the closeness. “I get that a lot.”

They sit on Tetsurou’s bed for however long, kissing, skin warming up, pulling each other closer and closer, space to be eliminated. The sun dawns, finally, peeks through Tetsurou’s window with warmth and strength, hitting Tsukishima’s back and haloing him in brightness.

“You should get dressed,” Tetsurou says, dragging his lips against the underside of Tsukishima’s jaw, “so we can get breakfast and start our day.”

“Has our day not started?”

“This was a preface. The story has not yet begun.”

By himself, Tetsurou stops to choose what exactly he should wear, and the shamelessness of their love hits him, meeting and kissing in not much but their undergarments, rough raw cotton and sleep-flushed skin. There’s a fire inside him, a desperation, a passion, and the need to have Tsukishima whole. Still, it’s not a rushed feeling, and instead something like wonder, the occupation of testing and tasting Tsukishima bit by bit.

If this weren’t a day like any other, if he were a bit more unashamed, he’d pull on the red clothes Tsukishima had made for him, and see how exactly he’d react. But Tetsurou’s sensible; he chooses, instead, white clothes, chaste and ponderate, and leaves his room for the dining hall downstairs.

It’s still quite early, so the breakfast table is not done being set. Hinata comes into the room with a platter of fruit, and smiles when he sees him, in surprise.

“Your Highness! You’re up early.”

“Indeed,” Tetsurou smiles, and sits down in one swift motion. Hinata sets down the tray, carefully, dead in the centre of all the other plates and dishes. “How have you been?”

“Ah, so very good! I really like it when there are guests over, because we get to experiment more in making special food. Having Kei-san is even better, because we try to make Karasuno foods with the ingredients available here, and that is becoming my specialty, sir!”

“That’s good to hear, Hinata-chan. Thank you for all of your hard work.”

Hinata bows, and walks backwards towards the door. “It’s an honour, your Highness!”

Tsukishima comes into the room shortly after Hinata leaves, looking clean and refreshed, any instance of slumber scrubbed out of his body.

“Good morning, your Highness,” Tetsurou grins, saying it as if he’s seeing Tsukishima for the first time. Tsukishima rolls his eyes and takes the seat next to him, sighing.

“Good morning, Tetsurou. It has been a while since we’ve met, has it not?”

“Mm, absolutely. You look refreshed — sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you. I woke up to a good thing, too.”

“What thing was that?”

Tsukishima fills his plate with cakes and biscuits, puts an apple on the side, and looks at him. He’s wearing his new glasses and, unlike the gold-rims, which were the same colour of his eyes and made him look like a sculpture or a gem, these make the colour of his eyes stand out, stark and bright, the rest of his face a whole lot cooler with the silver instead of the gold.

“You.”

Tetsurou pretends he didn’t choke on his food and reaches for his tea, clearing his throat. “Those new glasses do look stunning on you, darling.”

“Thank you. They do suit me, don’t they? My mother helped me pick them.”

“She is a woman of admirable taste, truly. Have you met my mother? I think you and her might get along quite well.”

“Only briefly, as I wished her a happy birthday during her ball. I’m sure I’ll have time to talk to her, however, in the next few days.” He takes a bite out of the apple and sets it back on his plate, well-mannered.

Tetsurou reaches underneath the table and takes his hand, swiftly. “I hope you do.”

  
  


The Nekoma palace is a relatively straight-forward building for something its size. The rooms in each floor serve a function, Tetsurou tells Tsukishima, which is the reason why you don’t find quarters on the first or third floors, nor common living areas on the second or third, nor entertainment spaces in the first or second.

“A common living area could be an entertainment space.”

Tetsurou turns to him and furrows his brow, jokingly upset. “There is a difference.”

“Depends.”

“Can I go on with the tour, please?”

Tsukishima raises his hands, as if he’s innocent, smirking. “I never stopped you.”

The first floor is the one with the least rooms, because most of them are spacious. The ballroom is on the ground floor, laden with fresco paintings and plaster details on the ceiling, the dining rooms with long wooden tables and tall paintings on the walls, lounging rooms with tall fireplaces and expensive couches. All the most expensive displayable items the Kuroos own are on this floor, accessible to every guest that comes, and it’s also where most of the palace guards do their rounds.

“We’re not even halfway across,” Tsukishima points out as they cross room into room, no halls and just doorways, Tetsurou pointing at particularly valuable items and throwing around celebrated artists’ names, “and I already want to sit down.”

“We will sit down once we reach the end. There’s a conservatory, we can bask in the light for a bit.”

“I’m not a big fan of the sun, especially when it’s warm like it’s been.”

“Your favourite activity is to be outside gardening, and you don’t like the sun?”

“I don’t garden when it’s scorching hot, and I always wear long sleeves and hats. I have some sense, Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou looks around and kisses him, quickly. He wants to do it again as soon as he pulls back, but he controls himself, even if just for now. “You’ll like it. I’m sure.”

When they sit down in the conservatory, the room cool despite the sun shining through the glass walls, bursting with beautiful plants and iron-framed couches, Tsukishima sighs, unbuttons his jacket and lies on one of the loveseats.

“All of your rooms look the same.”

“Kei! They do not. You can tell what each of them is destined for.”

“They’re all empty rooms with art and couches.”

“You’re ignoring dining halls.”

“I’m sorry.” Tsukishima sits up and takes off his jacket entirely; the sleeves of his shirt, pale pink and not too far from the colour of his skin, ruffle at the ends, falling wide and gently around his wrists. “The ones that don’t have couches have tables and chairs.”

“Then not every room is the same.”

“You mean it’s better to have twenty different rooms be classified into two than one amorfous standard?”

“First of all, Kei, there aren’t twenty rooms on the first floor; second of all, yes, of course it’s better to have any difference between rooms be highlighted.”

“Your standards are so low, Tetsurou.”

“Do you want to keep going with the tour or not?”

“Mm, let me rest. I feel like I’ve been walking for hours.”

Tetsurou sits down on the floor next to Tsukishima’s couch, and rests his back against the coffee table behind him. It digs into his skin, but here, he’s within kissing distance. Tsukishima stretches from the couch, leans forward, and their lips slot together with barely any effort.

“If we do the visit fast enough, we can go back somewhere and perhaps sleep through our afternoon.”

“I’m through with sleeping, Tetsurou,” Tsukishima smiles, his eyes closed, letting his hand droop off the couch and intertwining his fingers with Tetsurou’s. “I want to enjoy our time together while it lasts, and not waste it unconscious. As much as your offer might be tempting, I’ll pass.”

There is not much to the second floor, which they get to after Tsukishima nearly falls asleep even in his uncomfortable position on the couch. It’s all bedrooms, hallways and hallways of bedrooms, split into two different wings and all a little bit different. Most of them aren’t in everyday use, since the servants’ chambers are on a fourth underground level, but they are still all decorated and regularly cleaned, always ready for the occasion of some party or event that might demand the reunion of dozens of guests.

“Most rooms here do look the same, with similar layouts in relation to bed placement and furnishing, but they all have their own touches.”

“Once again, Tetsurou, they are all the exact same thing.”

“They are absolutely not.”

“Your room’s different,” Tsukishima says, pointing at his door as they walk by it. “Crown prince.”

“There are three rooms which are outstandingly different, and those are mine, my parents’ and Kenma’s.”

“Kenma’s?”

“I never told you about it, did I?” Tsukishima shakes his head, and Tetsurou sighs. Having Tsukishima’s hand in his is comforting, and he feels like he can talk about anything, no matter how dark, no matter how deep, because he has his love and his support. He feels like his chest is wide open, and Tsukishima would only have to prod once for everything to come out. “His parents passed while in a different kingdom when he was still young, and so he was taken in by my parents, becoming, in practical terms, my brother. We grew up together, learning the same, eating the same, only truly parted ways at the sprout of adolescence.”

“That makes sense,” Tsukishima says, quietly, squeezing his hand.

“Yeah. When my grandfather was still alive, shortly after the time Kenma’s parents passed, he truly wanted both of us, his closest heirs, to lead good and honourable lives, starting with our education and our childhood. He was a kind man, my grandfather. He changed what it meant to be king.”

“I’ve heard of him. I never knew him, of course, but I’m sure he’d see a lot of himself in you. And be proud of you.”

Tetsurou looks at him and notices his face feels warm, his eyes welling up with tears. Tsukishima’s looking at him fondly, cautious, and caressing the back of his hand with his thumb. Tetsurou tries to laugh it off, but it comes off awkward and ugly.

“Are you sweet-talking me, your Highness?”

“Tetsurou, don’t.”

He doesn’t listen; he laughs again, clearer, and looks to the side to hide his face. Despite being able to talk about things, that doesn’t mean bringing them up is comfortable. “Third floor?”

Tsukishima sighs, but he’s holding Tetsurou’s hand so tight, it’s acting like an anchor to both of them, no matter how many barriers come up or down. “Sure.”

The third floor is, undoubtedly, Tetsurou’s favourite. Like the second, it is split into two wings, the west hosting all of the meeting rooms and offices, while the east is the one with the actual entertainment quarters. It is filled with games rooms, a reduced auditorium for dramatic and musical performances, and Tetsurou’s favourite, the one room that outdoes the conservatory—

“Welcome to our library.”

Tetsurou has recovered, already, and it allows him to admire as Tsukishima walks into the room, his eyes gleaming with wonder and awe, head darting to the sides to try and look around.

“Tetsurou, this is beautiful— This is so much more astounding than Karasuno’s, why did you ever go there?”

“Here, there is not a crystal wall, Kei. Nor two floors of shelves.”

“Still.” Tsukishima takes a few more steps, until he’s in the centre of the first room. “Your library goes on forever! How many books do you even have here?”

“It is an uncertain number. And it does not go on forever, there are only three chambers.”

“Tetsurou, are you kidding me?” He turns around and walks back closer to him, his eyes shining golden, young and bright, a joy like Tetsurou’s never seen in him before, a lack of sadness or worry. Nothing like the Tsukishima of the night before; it warms up his chest, and they’re both smiling, looking at each other’s mouths. “This doesn’t even compare.”

Tetsurou can’t be bothered to respond. He takes Tsukishima by the back of his head, barely any effort with how close they’re standing, and kisses him with fire and ice, with burns, feral and crazy, boiling with want. Tsukishima doesn’t even need a second to warm up to him, to stoop down to his level, kissing him immediately with just as much claw and fang, as much bite and blood. It’s something without holding back, without meaning, minds thick with lust and air heavy with sweat.

Tetsurou’s back bangs against shelves when Tsukishima pushes him, gently, and the two of them fall sitting on the floor. Tsukishima’s hands are holding him together, holding him in place.

“Kei.”

Tsukishima hums against his skin, trailing kisses down the side of his face, past his jaw.

“Maybe not right now.”

He pulls away, looks at Tetsurou, and he’s out of breath and flushed bright red. There’s that light in his eyes, frantic, burning, and Tetsurou doesn’t like it, after all; it’s cataclysmic, decadent. He wants to love him calm, with peace, like a treasure. He doesn’t want them to rush this.

“It’s probably time for lunch.”

“Sorry.” Tsukishima pulls away even further, slides back. Tetsurou holds his hand before he retreats out of reach, and holds it with warmth and attention.

“Do not apologise,” he whispers, “and do not say it like I didn’t want you, either. But we’re in no hurry, are we?”

Tsukishima is still looking down, at their hands, and Tetsurou’s sight of him is impaired but he can tell his features soften, droop, all of his fierceness melting into affection.

“We’re not,” he says, his voice slow and hesitant.

“We have all the time in the world, do we not?”

Tsukishima hesitates again, his fingers shifting between Tetsurou’s, dancing against his skin. “We do.”

“Lunch?”

He hums; Tetsurou kisses him, chaste, and holds his hand as they go downstairs to the dining room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for non-explicit sex, and trigger warning for mental illness/depression and suicide.

Tsukishima doesn’t spend as much time in Nekoma as Tetsurou did in Karasuno, only a few days and not quite a week. Still, they spend more time together here than they did in the Tsukishimas’ palace, partly because of now being lovers and partly because Tsukishima Kei isn’t as big a name as Kuroo Tetsurou. Tetsurou gets to keep Tsukishima all to himself, mostly — his mother takes him on a visit to the city, without Tetsurou tagging along, and they spend time with Hinata and Kenma, but besides that it’s just the two of them, spending mornings and afternoons and evenings by each other’s side.

Tetsurou already knew this, but time spent by Tsukishima's side seems to fly by, one conversation tying in with the next, words fast-paced and responsive, reactive, coming out of him before he even thinks them up. Now, now that he's neither being instinctive and projective nor trying his hardest to be true, he gets to live in the comfortable middle, taunting and teasing and flirting. He's genuine, he speaks his truth, but he doesn't have to worry too much about letting Tsukishima see who he really is. That's someone Tsukishima already knows, someone made of poetry and breath, someone he touches and feels and kisses because he's allowed to, because they can.

They always sit next to each other during meals, even when the king spends the whole time asking Tsukishima questions, about his family and about his kingdom, about his aspirations and his dreams. They hold hands under the table, even when others are around, even surrounded by Tetsurou’s family or Hinata and Kenma’s love. They share thoughts and secrets with looks when they're in the middle of a group, and whisper words against each other's skins when they're by themselves. They're genuine and quiet, loving, unhurried. They get to love each other like it's a passion as old as the world, with no rush at all, like they know every bit of each other's bodies and minds.

Tetsurou brings him up to the roof, on the first night. It's a beautiful place, a special garden that most guests don't get to see, with chairs and flowers and bushes, dazzling like no other. It's specifically manufactured and maintained with foreign or out-of-season plants, demanding the most amount of money and care out of any room in the Nekoma castle. 

"This is lovely, Tetsurou." Tsukishima lets go of Tetsurou's hand, walks around. There's no limit, up here, to what they can see, without trees or walls to block their vision. From one end of the garden, they can see the entire world around them, made of mountains and rock, not nearly as plain and alive as Karasuno was, but still mysterious and magical in its own way. "I don't think I've ever seen this beautiful a garden."

"Could be yours. Will be yours, one day."

Tsukishima either doesn't listen, already too far away for Tetsurou's voice to reach him, or doesn't respond. Either way, he keeps on walking, touching the leaves and the flowers with a gentleness just his own, his fingertips made of the same fragile material as butterfly's wings, and Tetsurou can't help thinking of the first time he felt like they were close, back in the woods, in Karasuno.

Tetsurou can't stop thinking of Tsukishima washed out in gold, the sun between the trees, and the way the air was heavy with humidity and expectations. Tsukishima had touched him for the first time, had fallen into the creek with him, had taken off his jacket and sat in the sun with his eyes closed, going on for an hour about plants and stories and land. He had gone on, talking for so long with someone he hadn't loved yet, hadn't forgiven yet, and he didn't have to do that. Tsukishima, despite his ragged exterior and his pretend-coldness, has a heart, warm like noon on the warmest summer day. Tsukishima has a heart like a midsummer night, like drying rain but still-hot air, like the sun scorching the Earth with its fire.

Watching him, from afar, is when Tetsurou's poetry comes to life. He wrote just last night, words of passion and of joy, so willing to give himself up to Tsukishima, in perhaps the same acts of submission that he'd considered when he didn't know anything about love. Now, he wants to write again, wants to confess his love under the stars just like he's thought of doing before, wants to give out his heart and hope to get something, anything, back.

"Tetsurou," Tsukishima calls, and Tetsurou looks up. Tsukishima is already on the other side of the roof, standing above the east wings, and he has his arm stretched out, like he thinks Tetsurou can take it even from this far away. "Come here."

They dance without any music, feet bare on grass and welcomed by flowers. They kiss under the stars, made of love and made of evening. They're made of something bigger than themselves, Tetsurou thinks, feeling his lips brush against the dew settling on Tsukishima's skin. They're made of something more.

Tetsurou spends afternoons with him, in the conservatory and in the library, exploring the shelves and finding books he did not even know they owned, books he once read when he was a child and that had now faded from his memory entirely. Tsukishima naps on the floor of the library, lying on a blanket to alleviate the chill of the marble floors, and Tetsurou gets to write poetry with him in the room for the first time. It's exhilarating, but almost traumatic. He feels like he's being caught in an act of unholiness, in something frowned upon, prohibited.

He writes poetry with Tsukishima awake, studying botany next to him. Eventually, even though his heart feels like it'll burst out of his chest, he writes poetry with Tsukishima looking over his shoulder. As metalinguistic as it may be, he describes the feeling of bone on bone, a chin on a collar, and the warmth of skin and blood and muscle despite that. He describes soft edges to hard middles, and Tsukishima laughs as he reads along his scrawled, nervous handwriting.

For a few days, Tetsurou lives and breathes this boy. Days that feel, simultaneously, like they've lasted him hours and like they've lasted him years.

Tsukishima's been in his room multiple times in the last few days, has come to see him after he woke up and before he went to sleep, has laid in his bed as Tetsurou worked on his desk, has been in this chamber for hours and hours.

It's different, in the night before he's supposed to leave. Despite both of them being in the layers of clothes they wear everyday, Tsukishima draped in grey and Tetsurou in blue, Tetsurou feels bare. He can feel his skin crawling, crammy, like he's been muffled in steam, like there isn't room to breathe.

They haven't rushed a single thing. They've been patient, a love of the daily, a presence in every careful waking moment.

Even though no time was wasted, and all of it appreciated, Tetsurou doesn't want to spend another second without touching him.

It's still a hesitant work; Tsukishima's standing by the door, and Tetsurou by the window. Tetsurou turns, sees his figure wrapped in shadows, barely visible, no more than a few weak candles and the silver moon outside. Both of them take a step forward, slow, their shoes tapping against the flooring, and then Tetsurou takes another. Tsukishima's at an arm's reach. Tetsurou reaches, for his glasses, and, with the utmost care, like a wrong move might break him, he takes them off.

Tsukishima won't need them.

They close their eyes when they kiss, because seeing the other, even in the obscure darkness, feels like too much, too soon. Tetsurou doesn't let his touch turn crazed, and instead holds his neck gently to feel the breath and blood, the life, flowing through him. They kiss in a pressing, a pulling, a pushing, that is so much more afraid than anything else. From an outsider's point of view, perhaps it wouldn't feel like it was full of desire at all, but it's so much more than either of them can handle, steam and water slipping through their lips and past their tongues.

Tetsurou sits on the bed, and Tsukishima climbs on top of him, straddling him — it's a lot. For a second, Tetsurou can't kiss him, or he feels like he would mess it all up, too much at once, too much at all. He holds him by his shoulders, pushes him away, just slightly, just to catch his breath and take control again.

He knows it's a mistake to open his eyes, but he does it anyway.

He had been wrong, before —  _ this _ is the most vulnerable he's ever seen Tsukishima. It could be hard to see, with the light in the room so precarious, but they're so close everything’s visible. Tsukishima looks like he's monochrome, made of silver and grey and white, like a charcoal drawing or a misprinted book. His hair is ashen, longer, now, after months have gone by, curling around his face, soft like nothing else Tetsurou has ever touched. His face, in the darkness, isn't red, or pink, or peach. It's intense, it's a lot, definitely flushed by the warmth Tetsurou feels under his fingertips and by the way it doesn't look pale and weak. His breaths are staggering, insecure, in through his nose and out through his mouth, like he's struggling to keep himself together.

Tetsurou barely wants to do anything but look. Then, Tsukishima opens his eyes, and they're as stark golden as ever, not caring at all about the pretense of staying in greyscale.

"What are you doing?" He whispers, weak, rushed, one word tying into the other like cursive.

"I'm sorry." Tetsurou's frightened, at first, his eyes wide at how Tsukishima might react, but then he loosens and laughs, sliding his arms to Tsukishima's waist and hugging him tight against his chest.

"Tetsurou— what are you doing?"

He has his lips against Tsukishima's skin, with his head craned over his shoulder. He kisses the curve of his neck, reaching beneath jacket and shirt, and speaks with his mouth rubbing formless against his warmth. "You are the most beautiful person I have ever met, Tsukishima Kei. I didn't even know I could love like I do now."

He pulls away, and doesn't have another second to look at him, cautious and admiring. Tsukishima immediately pulls him into a kiss that's bruising, helpless, and he notices there was no more space for waiting. They want each other, want to have and to take. They don’t belong to themselves anymore.

Losing clothes is difficult with one body stacked on top of the other, but they find their way. Tsukishima wrestles with his jacket, too unwilling to take his hands away from Tetsurou's jaw, and Tetsurou wrestles with his pants, not at all wishing to have Tsukishima off of him. Eventually, after laughs and rolls and groans, they strip beyond even the barest they've seen each other, beyond undergarments. All of the fine lines the raw cotton had aforementioned to his eyes, all of the pale skin that had been kept underneath paler fabric, is now all for Tetsurou to see and to bask in, all for him to have and to want.

They're naked in body and soul. There's no more guessing beyond this point, simply knowing realities that they can no longer mask.

Tetsurou tests a formation of touch and of tongue, thighs against hips and flesh against bone, and it takes all the breath out of Tsukishima's lungs. He holds him tighter, tighter, stars burning and enveloping both of them in warmth, in security and belonging, and it's a ritual of need, no more wanting.

He wonders, for a second, if Tsukishima is made of flowers. Red carnations, dahlias, cherry blossoms. Smells so sweet they get sickening, but turning feelings into a gentleness that Tetsurou can't quite understand, into perfume or pollen. He blooms underneath him, against him, blooms in sounds and sensations, fireworks and fireflies in Tetsurou's vision, his skin the shade of starlight and burning red like torches, spreading down his neck and shoulders, to his weakest point, so red he makes it purple. Whatever Tetsurou kisses burns until it's left in coal and embers, red to black, blemishes on who was once the picture-perfect image of existence. Who was once a boy, so high up on his horse and on his castle, untouchable, unreachable. A boy that was once the first to truly deny Tetsurou now begs him yes, yes, and please, no space left for negatives.

Tetsurou holds him tight; he can't dream of letting go. This, this is finally the point of understanding all that his love was built upon. Poetry stops being words and turns into feelings, finally, finally, every metaphor and every draft making sense, ringing true, something rawer and more genuine than he could have ever dreamed of. Love is finally something that he knows, and it takes the shape of a boy who flushes colour into a world of black and white and grey, a boy who makes Tetsurou into a figure of red, into the image of desire.

Tetsurou, even as he shakes and trembles, keeps his lips on Tsukishima's neck, rocking, kissing, touching, his hands tight on his waist, Tsukishima’s back arching like a bow.

"Kei," he says, a call, a yell, even when it's barely said aloud. "Kei."

Tsukishima holds him by his neck, too, by the back of his head, because trying to hold onto his back was trying to find hard stone on soft shifting plains, the muscles in Tetsurou's back dancing, changing, moving. It's easier to get a grasp of his head, his nape, and it's like Tsukishima's hands were made for it, enveloping and touching him like a key inside a lock, the perfect fit.

"Tetsurou." He stutters, he scrambles, he cries. "Tetsurou, I'm— Tetsurou, please."

They both beg, and they both need. They're too mad for sense, too lazy to take, overflowing to give, and they hold onto each other because this is the end of the world. There's no life but this.

Tetsurou's life led up to the moment of meeting him, of learning how to love him. He rolls away, both their bodies tangled with each other and the sheets, the softness of skin and the easiness of cotton, and the slow rise and fall of Tsukishima's chest mirrors time and space in their essence, kingdoms and history all resumed in an organism breathing, Earth leaving them to be.

He slots Tsukishima's fingers with his own, incapable of not touching even when the room is made of sweat and heat. He belongs with his warmth, his blood still burning quiet in Tetsurou's system. He brings his hand up to his mouth and kisses its back, from wrist to fingers. Turns it, kisses the heel and the palm, opens his mouth and lets his teeth dig into the knuckles, not a bite but a taking, a having.

"Will you come see me off at dawn?" Tsukishima asks, his eyes closed and his head turned towards the ceiling. He doesn't see Tetsurou, but Tetsurou sees him, red and gold and grey, too many colours for one to map, the exact same shades of dark and pale white as a painting, as an image.

"Of course."

"I don't want to say goodbye."

Tetsurou watches him, until the tear tracks on his face shine anew, new tears rolling down the silver hills of his cheeks. There’s a pain in him, an absence, so raw and empty. Tetsurou doesn’t understand.

"It’s not a goodbye as much as it is a farewell," Tetsurou says, soothing, still against the skin of his hands, a promise in the movement of his lips.

Beats of silence pass by, but Tsukishima says, as quiet as the flicker of a spark, "I love you."

Tetsurou smiles, the anchor, the stone, "Godspeed, my love. I'll see you in the morning."

  
  


_ My Tetsurou; _

_ I don’t think anyone has ever hurt as much as I am hurting right now. _

_ I don’t know when this letter will reach you, or how it will reach you. Please read it through before talking to anybody else. I would like for you to hear all of this from me. Please excuse the faults I am sure this text will be filled with — I am not a writer or a poet like you are, and no matter the length that I reach with my words, not a single one of them will be as beautiful as yours can be. _

_ I didn’t expect you. I didn’t expect to meet you, and even less for you to make me feel like you did, for you to make me become who I did. You made everything better, Tetsurou. You were my light, you made me want to live longer, to hold on. You turned every single moment I spent by your side into something holy, something golden, that I don’t ever want to forget. _

_ I grew up knowing who you are, of course. Everyone knows who you are, and you know that, as well. When you came here, for a week, everyone wanted to see you to get a taste of the crown prince of Nekoma, the heir to the wealthiest crown in the land, the most wanted bachelor, the most handsome man. At eighteen, Tetsurou, you are already a name fleeting and present in every person’s mouth, spoken beyond every limit to your reign. At two, you were, as well. Before I could write my own name, I was reading yours, learning about you, all of the wonders you will one day own and do. _

_ You can only imagine the surprise I felt when you were the one to approach me, at your mother’s ball. I was only waiting to go home, begging for time to pass — you know, now, that I am not a fan of parties or any sort of formal or informal gathering. I came because my parents have been begging me, for the past two years, to become a more involved member of a royal family. I came because it was my first formal invitation to the Nekoma palace, and I couldn’t let my curiosity get the best of me. I came, and you said hello; I was taken aback, rightfully so. You are too gorgeous for your own good, Tetsurou, and I think you don’t even know the extent to which you’re beautiful. You were wearing red, that night; I don’t know if you remember. It was what inspired me to give you the red suit for your own party, back here. You looked like you were made of sin, and you were talking to me. What was I supposed to say? _

_ My instinct was to act defensive as I always do. Denying you, talking back to you, putting up a façade of formality and politeness, pretending to be nothing but a shy, quiet prince, something that I’ve never really been. You’d find that out, eventually. You did. I was the same defensive, deflective version of myself both at the party and when you came to Karasuno, uninvited, waltzing into my library like it belonged to you and questioning my hobbies and livelihood like you had any say in them. I was, with you, the same me as I’ve ever been with anyone else, anyone who got too close for comfort, anyone who dared reach for more of myself than I let show. I had not yet noticed that you were different. _

_ I will say, now that it is too late for regret, that I found you so intrinsically interesting, from the start. Maybe I had even been falling, interest and curiosity slowly making space for a crush, for love. Maybe if you had gone on differently, if you hadn’t gone too far too quickly, maybe our love would have been a less turbulent journey to travel. _

_ Then, you ruined it all. _

_ Before I tell you how I felt, I’ll tell you that I’ve been struggling with my mind for years. When you came to take Hinata back with you, I had been in my room for the past week, sleeping from the first rays of dawn until the last of the purpling dusk, and spending the darkness of night either awake or drifting in and out of nightmares. Rarely could I get out of bed, rarely have I ever been able to get out of bed, when my lowest lows hit me. I’m left empty, holed out, every single part of me carved away to leave me an empty husk, a void. I’ve never been a happy person, but you decided to turn a bad day into something worse, into something wicked. _

_ I still cannot believe how self-centred and selfish you were to think I would have fawned at the mere prospect of marrying you. No matter how beautiful you might be, or rich, or influential. No matter how politically positive that could have been, no matter the good that it could have brought to Karasuno, it was disgusting of you to propose to me in the darkness of the evening, on your knees, like a slave. Any feeling that I had been harboring for you, by then, cracked and crashed, shattered, leaving me even worse than I had been feeling before. _

_ I spent most of the next couple of weeks even deeper in the hole that I had already dug. _

_ Your letter came and, as much as I might try to deny it, it made me hopeful, Tetsurou. Maybe you had a heart, maybe you were good and everything you had been talked up to be. _

_ Maybe you could make me happy, make me smile and make me interested like you had, before, asking questions and teasing me, provoking me, into coming further and further into your space. _

_ Do I need to tell you, in detail, about everything you made me feel when you came? I would. If you had the time to respond and tell me yes, I would. Tetsurou, the amount that I would do for you, even without you having to ask me to, scares me. But, in this specific scenario, what do I have to say besides the fact that I fell for you? You came, asking to be forgiven, and I was frightened by the size of my hope. I wanted to forgive you, from the start, because I could feel that you had been as desperate for my trust as I had been desperate to give it to you. _

_ I wasn’t expecting to fall. Nothing of you, of your presence in my life, was anticipated in the slightest. I wasn’t expecting you to come watch me garden and to ask me to take you somewhere, to take you someplace in Karasuno even though you had just gotten the noble tour with my father and brother. I wasn’t expecting you to strip down in a dirty creek, by far not the prettiest spot in my kingdom, and to bring me into the water with you. I wasn’t expecting you to make me a picnic in the middle of the night, to ask to spend time with me when you had spent days feeling nothing but adoration. Isn’t that what you love, Tetsurou, to be adored and to be veneered? And yet, what you missed was my snarky presence. _

_ And you wrote poems about me; your love was genuine. Your love was beautiful. I dressed you in red to dream of having you, to see you as you had been the first time we met, but as soon as you walked into our ballroom I saw that you were not the same. That was when I looked in your eyes and knew you loved me; that’s when I realised I wanted you to love me, because I loved you too. I wanted to have you, I wanted to deserve you. I’m glad I’ve had you, at least once, had you wholly, fully, bare, raw; it’s the highest honour I could picture. _

_ Loving you, Tetsurou, has been the biggest privilege I have had in all of my almost seventeen years. I was born a prince, but royalty doesn’t compare to what it feels like to have you adore me, and to adore you, to have you against me and inside me, like we’re just one, like you’re the angel I’ve been sent. Like you’re responsible for shedding all of my hurt, all of my pain. _

_ I know you will never understand me, but, please. I promise you, darling, that I tried and tried to stay strong, to think of you and the future we could have together, the future you kept promising me, all the time in the world. I can’t stand to think of spoiling it with the hurt I’ve always carried within me. The light you shed to dissipate my darkness simply wasn’t enough — and you’re not the one to blame. You’re the brightest light in a room, Tetsurou. My darkness was simply too thick. You almost made it worth it, you almost had it gone. _

_ Almost. _

_ Tetsurou, by the time you read this letter, I will have died by the sleight of my own hand. I couldn’t take it anymore, darling. Even as I relived all of the love I felt for you, as I wrote this and tears filled my eyes, the pain was too much. I couldn’t stand to feel it anymore. I know you can’t understand, won’t understand, but know that I will miss you more than you will miss me. I will remember you for longer than you will remember me — forever, for all the time that will exist. _

_ Please forgive me, Tetsurou, someday. It is now my turn to beg for your forgiveness. _

_ Yours, forever, Kei. _

  
  


Kuroo Tetsurou is 24 years old. Misaki Hana is turning 25.

He wears black to her party, and it goes nicely with his silver wedding ring, fading him into monochrome, into darkness. He smiles and kisses her, congratulates her, and she looks beautiful, dressed in red like a queen should, her hair nicely framing her face, her entire being flawless.

Every day, Tetsurou needs a while to wake up. Most nights, he dreams of Kei, or has nightmares with him. Kei’s the backbone of his mind, the reason he stays alive — to live as long as possible, when the love of his life couldn’t.

Misaki knows it. She hugs him, touches him gently, just as far as he will let her. She watches him, watches out for him, understands that he carries a weight in his heart, a burden, that she will never be able to soothe. She is the best wife he could have, and he knows it. There is no one else he would want to have as his queen, no one else would be able to aid him and love him like she does. No one else is there to do that.

Kei’s funeral was probably the darkest moment of his life. Kei was right there, right there. Tetsurou wanted to hold him once more, wanted to curse him for all that he did, wanted to yell at him for how much he hurt him. Wanted to take away all of his pain and still have him alive, breathing, blood red like strawberries and flowing through his veins. Wanted to kiss him just once more, to have a chance to take his time, to do it for the last time, knowingly.

Eventually, Tetsurou ran out of tears.

He could never enter the Karasuno library again; he only visited their creek once, sat there after the funeral and cried until his tears replenished the river. He could mark the spots where Kei had been, could sit back inside the water where they had fallen and Kei had laughed, and it still wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing would, he learned. Kei’s pain had been too grand for him to take away.

He keeps his letter in his last drawer, even though he doesn’t read it. He only read it twice, one after the other, to make sure he understood all that it said. To make sure that it was true, that it was Kei, that it would never be Kei again. He knows all of its words, knows all that Kei felt, to the best of his ability to write down feelings. He didn’t have to read it multiple times for it to engrave itself in his brain, for it to come to him in nightmares, for it to come to him in daydreams.

Tetsurou stopped writing poetry.

He became king; responsibilities flooded him, and good. He couldn’t deal with the weight of loving, anymore, the weight of missing, the weight of mourning. Busying himself, finding an occupation, leaving behind the life of reading and writing and kissing and telling, were only for the better. He needed to do all of that, eventually, and now he couldn’t see a single advantage to keeping a life so easy, so empty.

His tears filled back up, but he decided he wouldn’t cry anymore. He cried for the last time at Hinata and Kenma’s wedding, the event small, fit perhaps for the richest of peasants, not for the second in line to the throne. His tears were joy and they were sorrow, at once, both rejoiced in seeing a love he’d watched start and unravel, a love he knew was purer than anything in existence, and wrecked by the weight of their history. Wrecked by the fact that the two of them would have never happened if it weren’t for Kei, and how much Tetsurou had loved — still loves — him. 

Kei comes to him in dreams. Kei kisses him in dreams, climbs up inside his skin, tells him stories and tells him jokes, ironic, taunting. Tetsurou doesn’t wake up crying, but he wakes up feeling like his chest collapsed. Sometimes, the feeling bleeds into his days, takes up his mind, and he becomes utterly useless for hours on end.

He meets a lover, and loves her halfway. He marries her, weds her, without ever falling to his knees. He loves her, adores her, knows that there’s no one else but her in the world for him, but he never once sees flowers in her navel, or gems in her eyes. She knows, and she understands. It is impossible to know Tetsurou, truly, to live with him and go to bed with him, without knowing the extent of his pain and of his trauma. The story he brings with him, after six years, still.

“You look beautiful.” Tetsurou reaches down to kiss the top of her head, and she leans into his touch.

“Thank you. How are you feeling?”

“Good. The party is stunning — what you deserve, isn’t it?”

Misaki laughs, and she’s beautiful, she really is. Laughing comes to her easy, her cheeks always pink, her lips always rosy. She doesn’t look 25, doesn’t look a day past twenty. “Thank you, dear. Go enjoy it, why won’t you?”

Tetsurou tries. Kenma’s here, his hair braided in with gold strings, Hinata holding his hand and talking to him even when no one else is. Sometimes, Tetsurou can’t stand to be with them, even if he loves them more than anyone else. Sometimes, Tetsurou goes up to the roof, or to the library or the conservatory. Sometimes, he yearns for Kei to come back to him. Sometimes, he gives up; he sits down, breathes out, whether it’s day or night or cold or bright, and lets the world seep back into his blood, through his skin, through his flesh.

He knows Kei’s not coming back. He knows he’s never getting someone else like him. He’s forgiven him, he really has. He doesn’t understand, but he could never hold it against him. It was stronger than he was, bigger than he could have handled.

Now, he goes out into one of the first floor rooms, a specific one, probably the room in the entire palace, beside his sleeping chambers, that he spends the most time in. It’s like any other — all the rooms on this floor are the same.

There’s a painting above the fireplace, framed in eighteen-carat gold, painted by an artist he has never met. Akiteru gave it to him, told him he would have more use for it than they would, that he needed at least one memory, one image, to never let him slip his mind. Tetsurou didn’t have the heart to tell him that he could never forget how Kei looked, at any given time, made of words and wisdom, made of adolescent loveliness.

He’s been told the painting was made for Kei’s sixteenth birthday, a few months before they met. It’s the Kei from the first night, the Kei he first met; unsmiling, frowning, with a sadness in his eyes, bags unconcealed. It’s a Kei painted in gold and white, wearing cobalt clothes that paint him into the night sky, that set him out from the background behind him.

Why would Tetsurou need poetry, when he has these feelings? Wrecking him, destroying him, exploding inside of him like gunpowder and a spark? No words could ever live up to all that Kei has been, even after all this time, his presence still there as if he had passed only yesterday.

It takes Tetsurou a while, but he recovers. With each passing day, it’s less pain, and more remembrance. With each passing day, he stays in bed shorter and shorter times after he wakes up, he needs less and less time to let go of the joy of dreams and the ache of nightmares. With each passing day, the colours fade and melt, the ink evaporates, paper turning yellow and sepia and crumbling under his touch.

Misaki’s smiling at a guest when he walks back into the ballroom, and you can tell she’s the queen, you can tell she’s the light of the room. You can tell she was born for it, made of care and perfection, carved out of the warmest of spring mornings, the first warm day of the year. When she sees Tetsurou, she smiles wider, turns her head and winks at him.

He loves her, and knows he couldn’t have anybody else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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